Between December and April, holidays seem to travel a steady, declining celebratory curve. Assuming more normal circumstances, the merry-o-meter begins the climb to its annual peak during Thanksgiving. We eat, drink, be merry, and then Halloween comes around, where we eat, drink and be merry but this time in fancy dress.
November does tend to plateau, but that gives us time to enjoy the fall before the low hum of jingle bells rises into a deafening roar. Before you know it, Christmas is here – the most wonderful and exhausting time of the year!
While festive in its own right, New Year’s Eve is a less commercially omnipresent excuse to eat, drink and be merry, but this time we make promises to ourselves that we may or may not keep for the next 360-odd days of the year. That’s when the dead of winter settles in, but there’s still a warm hum from Valentine’s Day. By the time you get to St. Patrick’s Day, though, you’re so done with winter, done with early spring rain and in a lot of circles, the day isn’t much more than a day to put some food colouring in your beverage of choice, enjoy some Celtic rock and pinch people who don’t wear green.
This might be a hot take, but I think St. Paddy’s generally deserves better. So let’s take a look at some of the more fun tidbits of spring’s forgotten holiday.
St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated on our side of the pond since the 1730s. According to time-worn legend, St. Patrick was once an atheist who was captured in Wales or Scotland and shipped to Ireland as a slave. He escaped after more than a decade of slavery, returning to Ireland as a Christian missionary. According to folklore, he used the shamrock to illustrate the principle of the Holy Trinity and miraculously banished snakes from Ireland, chasing them into the ocean. According to some legends, March 17 marks the day of St. Patrick’s death.
Looking to our neighbours to the south, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations have turned, particularly the eastern half of the country, America a brilliant shade of emerald year after year. Boston, home to a sizable Irish-American community, drew hundreds of thousands of visitors, who reveled in the Irish celebration through an extravagant parade, a visit to one (or more) of dozens of Irish pubs in the city and partaking in the traditional dishes of corned beef and cabbage. The Chicago River is dyed green every year, and the legendary South Side Parade grew so large that the celebration had to be scaled back considerably. As of publication, the parade is understandably cancelled for 2021 and the parade committee is looking for ways to celebrate Irish culture in some other way.
As overlooked as St. Paddy’s can be, some places in Canada know how to do it right, too. Here in B.C., Vancouver has held CelticFest, a multi-day celebration of all things Celtic Nations, since 2004. 2021’s edition is virtual, which makes the events spanning 10 days accessible to more people than ever before. St. John’s, Newfoundland – the closest city in North America to the Emerald Isle – has held multi-day celebrations of their rich Irish heritage since the 18th century.
Additional, side fun fact: Newfoundland is the only place outside Ireland itself to have its own indigenous Irish language name: Talamh an Éisc, translated to “land of the fish.”
The past year and some change has been hard on all of us. Life’s too short not to celebrate (responsibly) when you can, so I’d certainly encourage you to make your own traditions for March 17 this year. Even though it’s safe to say big gatherings like a St. Patrick’s Day parade and live Celtic music might not be happening anytime soon, you might find those little celebrations have more impact than their size would suggest. Sometimes it’s those little parties that get us through the day.
So with that said, don’t hesitate to don your green and gold, pump some Gaelic Storm (I recommend ‘Bring Yer Wellies’), and toast the green drink of your choice to the Emerald Isle.
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig ort (Blessings of Patrick’s Feast on you)!
@adamEditor18
adam.louis@hopestandard.com
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