St. Patrick’s Day

We’ve lived in Ireland for six St. Patrick’s Days but until this year I’ve never experienced the main event of this holiday, which is a parade through your local village. 

Because Ireland doesn’t have an Independence Day or other holiday marking a political milestone, St. Patrick’s Day has become the day for Irish people celebrate themselves, which they don’t often do. 

Perhaps that is why some people at the parade wore those the jaunty hats and the ginger beards that play up stereotypes of Irishness. I thought they would be rude, and they probably are, but I’ll let Irish people be the judge of offensiveness. 

I love a local parade. Two high school marching bands, a charity float festooned in advertisements, and tractor will satisfy me.

When the parade was over (seven minutes) the bands took turns playing tunes that celebrate Irish history and culture in the Market Square.

I didn’t recognize all of them:

But I knew “The Foggy Dew,” a song about the 1916 Rising. 

Here are Sinéad O'Connor and The Chieftains singing it, over the ambush scene from from the film Michael Collins.

I recognized “The Town I Love So Well,” about Derry. 

Here are the Henry Girls singing it when it was voted Ireland’s favorite folk song.

After the parade, families went home and the rest moved to the pubs where day drinking commenced.

EPIC, the Emigration Museum in Dublin, released a campaign this year, This Is Not Us.

I tried the search:

No other country has a worldwide celebration of its ethnic stereotypes heritage. So many reasons why: Massive emigration. Large families. The absolute superiority of Irish music and storytelling. A drinking holiday in the middle of Lent.

And the political power. Does any other country take over Washington DC with annual high-level audiences and cultural piss ups celebrations? 

(Leo Varadkar, a gay man, also met with the Vice President, and said if it wasn’t for the gay rights movement in the US, he wouldn’t be standing there.)

When I lived in Santa Cruz, I spent most St. Patrick’s Days at work. In Ireland, it is a bank holiday and always celebrated on the 17th. If it falls on a Wednesday, everything is closed on the Wednesday, and Thursday everyone has a hangover at work.

I started the day with a swim, and was surprised to see several of my neighbors wearing the ridiculous stuff. 

I wouldn’t wear this sort of thing in America, but the humor of it felt like us.

Finding Ella Young in California

In November I traveled around the Bay and Central Coast with Ella Young’s biographer, Dorothea McDowell. We were joined by a few friends, and we had quiet and adventure. I wrote about it over on the EllaYoung.org blog.