L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire.

Back home in Vancouver, St. Patrick’s  Day is little more than an excuse to drink green beer and pinch people, but here is Dublin it is a whole other story!! In Ireland St Patrick’s Day is a National Holiday, no school, no work, and no stores open (only pubs!). You might be interested in knowing that it is common in North America to abbreviate St. Patrick’s Day to ‘Patty’s Day’ however, this is incorrect. You’d be best to call it Paddy’s Day, lest you incur the wrath of the Irish.

And did you know that St. Patrick was not actually Irish? Rather he was captured by pirates and sold to work on an Irish Farm. He eventually returned to his homeland, having had a deep religious experience in Ireland. Back home, St. Patrick dreamt of Ireland and realized his destiny was to return to the Emerald Isle once more. When in Ireland he became a famous preacher- essentially our idea of a rock star. He also claimed to have driven away all the snakes from Ireland, however scientists have proof that such reptiles never lived on Irish soil.

Regardless, St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and a national hero! So on the 17th of March the whole country shuts down and celebrates their culture. I was thrilled to get to spend St. Patrick’s day in Dublin – the heart of the party! I travelled downtown early Tuesday morning to get a good spot for the fabulous Paddy’s Day Parade. Let me tell you- I was not disappointed! The Parade began winding it’s way through the city at noon, and arrived in front of our primo spot at about one- well worth the wait! It was a good 2-3 hours of non-stop entertainment. In Canada, our parades are usually fairly ordered, often the fire departments will show up, as will other important community members, followed by a pipe band and perhaps some girl scouts in fancy dress. This parade was unlike anything I’ve seen back home! I would actually call it more of a carnival than a Parade. The costumes were amazing and fantastical, the music was fantastic, just the general vibe of the experience is indescribable. I strongly urge you to check out my Flickr page (click HERE) for more photos, as I doubt I could fit the 100-odd photos I took into this one little blog post.

Following the Parade, the city began to get even crazier. Thousands of people crammed every street- most wearing some form of goofy green headgear- and every pub we passed by was packed full! I was to some extent expecting this, my Irish friends had warned me, if you want to get a seat in a pub- be there when it opens and not a second later! So instead of a Pub I headed to Bewley’s on Grafton street with a few friends. Bewley’s is a Dublin Institution- a wonderful café and restaurant in a magnificent old building in the heart of downtown Dublin. (And it is very reasonable, price-wise!) We had a delicious meal and a great chat then went for a walk in the sunshine around Stephen’s Green (which is a famous park in Dublin). I’ve been told that it will often rain on St. Patrick’s Day but luckily we had excellent weather- and it was still slightly nippy- enough to wear my favorite green coat comfortably. All in all it was a fantastic, very Irish, day!