I love the fact that the nation gets a day off for a Saint related reason. Sure he converted the vikings to Catholicism, and is said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland, but secretly I think the Irish just used the day as an excuse to get drunk on a weekday!
After some slightly skew-if advice, Erin and I got up rather early on our day off to head into Dublin City Centre to celebrate our first big holiday in Ireland.
We got into town by 9.30am with the intention of getting a great viewing spot for the parade. I had anticipated crowds of people already drunk and dressed in green combatting with parents with a million excited kids in tow, for front row possies for the parade. What we did encounter was the quietest O'Connell St Dublin's ever seen. We headed to the south side to grab a coffee and sat in the sunshine (while it was out) watching tourists slowly start to appear. Weather wise, it was completely non-Irish; quite ironic really seeings as it was the country's national holiday. The sun was shining and it was a clear spring day. After a toilet pit stop, we prepared to stand at our spot right opposite Trinity COllege and on the corner of the Bank of Ireland Building, for the next 3 hours where we could see the parade round the corder onto Dame St after making its way over the O'Connell St Bridge.
Everywhere you looked there were giant novelty leprechaun hats, some even complete with ginger haired beards attached, shamrocks painted across peoples faces, green, green and more green. Kids were dressed up, teenagers, adults, tourists and even the elderly. It was great to see so many people get into the spirit.
The parade was okay, lots of marching bands, some dancing shamrocks and lots of birds and space related things. There was even a giant flying pig and King Kong (?). Definately worth a look if you're ever in Dublin for St Patrick's Day. It was after the parade had finished that the real celebrations started. Hoards of people all heading in teh direction of the nearest pub or MacDonald's.
So we wandered the city for a bit, avoided the thousand or so people gridlocked on the Ha'penny Bridge, tried to get into the Aussie pub on Parnell st (to no avail), and ended up at Dunnes for lunch (the Irish version of Target). To get into the true spirit of St Pat's day, we headed to our local pub, Fagan's for a beer, or cider as the case was.
I left Erin at home and headed out about 6pm to meet up with some Australian's in town. We weren't quite game enough to head to Temple Bar, but did head just out of it to a pub called O'Neills. The place was packed with drunks all wearing green and as a I walked out into the balcony to my friends I was greated with a rather excitable cheer (wish that was the reaction I got every time I walked into a room). Following my was Karl who was then greeted with the well known cries of 'skull, skull, skull...'. Ah, the joys of peer pressure.
The crowd got a little more lively with lots of singing with arms around each other, until someone brought out a harmonica and started to play Waltzing Matilda. Hearing the song of our homeland from across the other side of the pub, we raced over to see what was happening. It was some semi-aussie guy (having left the country a long time ago) who was not impressed when we told him it was not Australia's national holiday but Irelands, and that he should play something Irish.
After some help from our good friend Jagermeister, we decided we wanted to dance the night away and headed to the Porterhouse. 15 mins in a queue quickly passed with an argument with the bloke behind us over how he though we were more likely to get cancer from the pollution for passing cars than the cigarette smoke he was blowing in our direction - I think he'd left his brain at home that morning! We headed inside where we danced the night away.
Needless to say that work was a little quiet the next day. Hardly any kids were at school and those that were, were very subdued (why can't they be like that all the time). They were dissappointed though that there weren't any riots this year (go figure).
Overall, a rather successful St Patrick's day! Please don't be disappointed friends there aren't any pics from the pub part of my day - there's a very good reason those photo's won't be up for public viewing!!
