St. Patrick’s Day is nearly over. I didn’t do too much this year– I wore my requisite green shirt, and striped green socks, and even drank a holiday themed beer in the evening, however overall the day was relatively low key, as P and I were both busy working on projects, shackled to our respective computers.
Conversely, P’s younger brother U was in Dublin, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in style with our Irish friend RH and our former neighbor D (who several months ago resettled in the Emerald Isle). U was periodically uploading pictures of his St. Patrick’s Day activities on Facebook, giving us a glimpse of what the party was like in the Irish-American “motherland.”
U, RH and D in Dublin
I’ve mentioned before that my family considers itself “Irish-American.” On my mother’s side my grandfather immigrated from Western Ireland (I believe in the 40s), and my grandmother’s parents were also both from that region of the country. On my father’s side the connection stretches back farther, but the family still takes pride in it’s “Irish-American” roots. As an “Irish-American” St. Patrick’s Day has always been an acknowledged and celebrated part of the spring calendar.
Growing up my father was part of an Irish-American club in the town, and I remember many childhood St. Patrick’s Days spent at the club helping to serve corned beef and cabbage dinners to townspeople who came by the hundreds every March 17th. Many of them probably considered themselves “Irish-American” as well but I’m sure others just wanted to join in the fun and celebrate along with their friends and neighbors.
We would watch Irish step dancers perform and listen to recordings of Irish pub songs that relied heavily on accordions and fiddles. Everyone in the club was bathed in Kelly Green… shirts, pants, dresses, socks, scarves. Some wore plastic shamrock shaped shot glasses hanging from green Mardi Gras bead necklaces, others wore headbands with cheesy shamrock antenna, and little kids often sported sparkly green shamrock stickers on their cheeks. As far as I was concerned, as a kid, everyone in the world celebrated St. Patrick’s Day.
Then in sixth grade I signed up for a youth magazine that had a pen pal section in the back. For several years I often responded to pen pal requests, and I advertised for pen pals as well. I had quite a few, some in the US, but also several from abroad– including one kid I exchanged several letters with from Singapore. He had responded to my pen pal request printed in the magazine, explaining he was of Indian origin and his name was Manuj. In response to the letter he sent I told him a little about myself, and talked about my excitement for St. Patrick’s Day, which was coming a few days later. In the letter I asked him about how he celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, and what people do for the holiday in Singapore.
A few weeks passed and I received a letter back that contained shocking information for the sixth grade version of me… “We don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Singapore, as there are not a lot of Irish people here. Since my family is from India, we have never done anything for St. Patrick’s Day, but it was interesting to hear what your family does.” It was one of those “aha” moments for me that made me realize that other parts of world really are different.
After meeting our Irish friend, I’ve had several other “aha” moments about my understanding of “Irish-American” culture, and how it differs from “real Irish” culture– including my name. I think I mentioned this before, but I always thought my first name was a super-uber Irish name, but later realized (and this really shook up my world!) that my name is only popular in Irish-diaspora cultures like the US and Australia, and hardly anyone in Ireland proper has my name because it is a gaelic noun.
I think RH had similarly strange “aha” moments (I am assuming, he can correct me if I am wrong) after coming to the US for his graduate studies. Many Americans, particularly in New England which is a large “Irish-American” stronghold, had a lot of stereotypical views of what an “Irish” person was supposed to be like, and RH often didn’t adhere to their expectations.
So when U decided to travel to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day RH was a little worried that U would be disappointed. St. Patrick’s Day is often an excuse for people in the US to go a little crazy, drinking green beer and sharing their Irish pride all over the place… but these crazy celebrations are often in Irish-diaspora cities. Dublin has a parade and celebrations, but RH worried that U might expect the biggest St. Patrick’s Day party ever, the granddaddy of them all, so to speak.
It seems from the pictures that the festivities were fun, and U had the “authentic” Irish St. Patrick’s Day party he was hoping for.
If you are interested in learning more about the creation of “Irish-American” cultural identity NPR had an interesting 45 minute radio program on Tom Ashbrook’s “On Point” the other day called “How the Irish became American” arguing, in part, that “Irish-American” identity was one of the first hyphenated identities in the US. It’s definitely worth a listen.
Hope you all had a nice day… whether you celebrated St. Patrick’s Day or not :)
Musings from an American-Nepali Household 
Seems like you made more of an Irish effort than I did! I have only spent St. Patrick’s Day in central Dublin once, in my final year at university when my friends amongst the Eurasmus students wanted to “see” the Dublin celebrations. I think the Irish were outnumbered about 10 to 1 by tourists! Usually my (Irish) friends in Dublin would go back to their home town for St. Patrick’s Day. This year I was running an 8km race at 7am! Now that was possibly the strangest St. Patrick’s Day ever!
It looks like you have done a few races… I imagine in Dubai many sporting events have to be held early due to the heat!
I was also in Dublin for Patty’s day this year! There were definitely more Americans than Irish celebrating on the streets!
It was pretty interesting for me this year going to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin for the first time since I was a kid. U had traveled especially from the US for it – I couldn’t just stay at home!
The night before U, D and I were in Temple Bar in Dublin and U and D wanted to get ‘St. Patrick’s Day 2012’ t-shirts. I had no choice but to get one for the next day. I just hoped no one I knew would see me in it. But there wasn’t too much danger of that as everybody at the parade in Dublin is either foreigners (who come to Dublin for it like U) or families with small kids. Many Irish people avoid it and can tend to look down a bit on all the paddy-whackery involved.
It was nice having somebody else I know from America there to realise that it’s not just RH being weird that I’m not so into St. Patrick’s Day. As D observed ‘its really an Irish holiday for foreigners’. It was interesting for me though to see it this year in Ireland – especially after encountering the hype in America around St. Patrick’s Day over the last few years over it.
It’s pretty hard to know if there really is an “authentic” Irish St. Patrick’s Day parade or not. I guess it would be one in Ireland, but then again the first St. Patrick’s Day parade was in America.
And to top this year’s St. Patrick’s Day, Guinness broker the Guinness Book of world records and claimed that March 17th is the “Friendliest Day of the Year’