Saint Patrick's Day is of course well underway in Ireland, and is there any better way to celebrate it than with a parade? Well... actually, yeah, I suppose there is, but a parade is a pretty good way to kick off the celebration of a British man taken to Ireland as a slave, told by God to flee, then, after successfully returning home, encouraged by God to
return so that he might save the Irish. And why drink on this 17th day of March? Because it used to (and still does) serve as a one day break from Lent. And what did many of the Irish give up for this forty day stretch of fasting? You got it. So the drinking actually has a purpose, folks! So that's what I did this afternoon... the parade, not the drinking... My impressions of the parade? Worth attending, but a little sporadically thrown together. And for whatever reason this year's theme (there are themes to St. Patty's Day parades other than Irishness and St. Patrick?) was Over the Moon. A little beyond me, I have to admit. And although Galway was densely packed it wasn't as... wild, maybe?... as I was expecting. I actually don't know what I was expecting, maybe just that it would have been more elaborate. Also there were plenty of people not wearing green. But all that aside I'd still much rather go to a parade than class on occasion,
and I can proudly say I've been in Ireland on Saint Partick's Day.
A few fun tidbits:
-The Irish do NOT pinch or punch anyone who doesn't wear green today. Nor have they ever heard of that tradition.
-The shortest parade in celebration of this day takes place in a village in County Cork where they travel 100 yards between the two pubs there.
I was almost certain that this was the horse taken by the travelers until I remembered that horse had two other stockings. Maybe they just painted them black so they could use him in the parade...
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