St. Patrick’s slay
One thing that points all of the world’s eyes toward Ireland every year is St. Patrick’s day. As the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick’s roots run deep in Irish culture, though this tradition has grown to be celebrated in more countries than any other national festival. People flood into Dublin from all corners of the world to celebrate the festival in the center of its tradition, which is pretty cool cause this year I just had to put my shoes on and walk out of my door to live it. I had a great time, and this blog is about how it went down and what my tips are if you want to show up.
The parade
The parade is the main event of the holiday, and snakes through the entire city centre, with people packed along the streets way before it even starts. Families with kids are right next to students pregaming (12pm btw), tourists with flags, and Dubliner veterans who know what’s up. There’s music everywhere, people pulling Spiderman moves for a better view, and a constant background hum of shouting, laughing, and random chants in different languages.
Around 12 o’clock, the actual parade starts, and you’ll see huge colourful floats, random giant puppets, marching bands from Ireland and the US, dancers, acrobats, and really elaborate costumes that are sometimes more “what on earth is that?” than traditional Irish. There’s this mix of proper organised spectacle and randomness that makes it fun to just stand there and not question anything too much. If you’re visiting, it feels like being dropped into the greenest, loudest, most extroverted version of Ireland for a day.
No longer the parade
Once the St. Patrick’s Day parade wraps up around 3pm, you’d think the crowds would thin out. NUH UH. Office workers clock out early, students pile in from UCD and Trinity, and tourists flood every corner to fill all streets and pubs near temple bar, O’Connel and Dame street. As it gets later, the city centre turns into one giant, throbbing street party where the Liffey becomes a moat of leprechaun merch, spilled pints, and barely-intellegible English. People bring their own speakers, instruments and microphones, so you’ll walk into different pockets of people all the time. At its core, St. Patrick’s is a call for everyone in the city to take to the streets, which is what may make it most appealing or off-putting for different people. For me, the chaos and energy of so many people is exactly what I was looking for.
For my group, and most people there, the procedure was straightforward:
- Wear green.
- Agree to meet in a common room or public space.
- Bring everyone you know, who in turn brings everyone they know.
- Roam the street meeting people and inevitably lose track of practically everyone.
- Rally at the end of the night and debrief on the way home.
It doesent sound like anything groundbreaking, but like I said, the fun for me was in the masses of people out on the street and in how much energy there was everywhere you went.
Closing pro tips 😎:
- Check the St Patrick’s Festival website to see what events you could be interested in.
- Wear disposable shoes with thick soles (glass everywhere).
- Consider a waterproof layer and power bank.
- Carry everything you want on your person, don’t do a ’group bag’.
- Share your locations between your friends.
- Don’t go with a set places in mind, since spots fill up pretty fast and its easier to be opportunistic.
- If it looks like it’s too packed to get through, it probably is.
- Maybe avoid temple bar.
I hope you can show up and enjoy it too!
Badabim badabum,
Joseba
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