Comments on: How Irish Is St. Patrick’s Day Really? http://www.vagabondish.com/how-irish-is-st-patricks-day-really/ The Travelzine for Today's Vagabond Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:42:23 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Seán http://www.vagabondish.com/how-irish-is-st-patricks-day-really/comment-page-1/#comment-666 Seán Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:58:19 +0000 http://www.vagabondish.com/how-irish-is-st-patricks-day-really/#comment-666 Nice entry. As a US ex-pat living here in Ireland the last several years, I would wholeheartedly agree with the americanization comment but not the "not a big deal" thing. While foam hats and green pints might be the rage nowadays, the hallmarks of the holiday used to be national prayer and closed pubs. It has always been big deal, just not a drunken one. After all, Patrick is the patron saint of this (until recently) staunchly catholic country. Life in Ireland really did revolve around the church - they were the only folks who stuck it out with them in all their misery. Also, despite the long struggle for Irish independence, there is no Irish independence day (last year was the first year it was celebrated publicly) - sentiments of Irish pride have always been reserved for Paddy's day. You might be interested in <a>this blog entry</a> where I try to describe for my fellow yanks how the Irish feel watching worldwide Paddy's day celebrations. I said it would be like this: <em>Imagine if on the 4th of July we all put on foam cowboy hats, fat suits and ignorant expressions while dancing around in Mickey Mouse costumes burning effigies of Native Americans.</em> hehe Nice entry. As a US ex-pat living here in Ireland the last several years, I would wholeheartedly agree with the americanization comment but not the “not a big deal” thing.

While foam hats and green pints might be the rage nowadays, the hallmarks of the holiday used to be national prayer and closed pubs. It has always been big deal, just not a drunken one.

After all, Patrick is the patron saint of this (until recently) staunchly catholic country. Life in Ireland really did revolve around the church – they were the only folks who stuck it out with them in all their misery.

Also, despite the long struggle for Irish independence, there is no Irish independence day (last year was the first year it was celebrated publicly) – sentiments of Irish pride have always been reserved for Paddy’s day.

You might be interested in this blog entry where I try to describe for my fellow yanks how the Irish feel watching worldwide Paddy’s day celebrations. I said it would be like this:

Imagine if on the 4th of July we all put on foam cowboy hats, fat suits and ignorant expressions while dancing around in Mickey Mouse costumes burning effigies of Native Americans.

hehe

]]>