I am Welsh, have no particular fondness for alcohol, and was born on March 18. St. Patrick’s, then, is hardly my favourite day of the year.
The thing that irks me is why people choose to celebrate St. Paddy’s anyway. It’s less about national pride, now, and more about international inebriation.
How many people will have celebrated on Thursday 17 with the knowledge that they are at least a little bit Irish, somewhere pretty far back? And how many people are just in it for the alcohol?
BarOne, of course, put on another spectacle this year, something akin to a green version of ‘The Legendary Christmas Day’.
And, the Facebook page in honour of the event decries the absence of Guinness (apparently only served at Interval), with no one seeming remotely fussed by anything else at all.
I’ve only ever spent one St. David’s Day in Wales, but it is something I will always remember. I was five years old, at school, and we had the afternoon off for awards, and a fair. Everyone wore national dress.
Almost every Welsh person knows when St. David’s Day is, because we are brought up knowing, and we are brought up celebrating.
Aside from everything else, then, I suppose that my main issue with St. Patrick’s Day is that of national pride. Ask an Englishman when St. George’s Day is and I bet that most wouldn’t know.
But ask when St. Paddy’s day is, and whoa! Everyone knows. Odd, that, isn’t it?