Becky Wildkid

Ireland, for me is like my second home, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is just like celebrating Chinese Spring Festival! Like the Chinese, the Irish have a long history of economic migration, and have settled in many countries around the world, particularly in the USA.

As any traveller knows, Ireland is a very green, rural country, thanks to the amount of rainfall, with some areas seeing rain for 225 days in a year.

The colour green is predominant on St Patrick’s Day as that is the national colour of Ireland, which is sometimes called the Emerald Isle. All of the countries in the British Isles have a Patron Saint’s Day but the biggest celebrations are always held on March 17th, Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day.

For people who live in Ireland and Northern Ireland it is a national holiday, but in the wider world it is seen as an opportunity to explore one of the most emblematic aspects of Irish culture – getting boozed up.

The preferred tipple for most people on St Patrick’s Day is a pint of Irish stout, a heavy, black beer, although others may plump for a glass of Irish whiskey. Irish pubs can be found in every corner of the world. Most major capitals in the west will have at least a few. Even in South America and the Far East one can enjoy a pint of stout while listening to traditional Irish music. Are these bars opened to serve homesick Irish expats living abroad? With a population of about 4 million, Ireland could hardly provide enough expats to keep a fraction of them up and running. It is owing to the reputation of Irish pubs, and Irish drinking culture in general, that they can be found wherever there are large communities of Americans and Europeans.  

Fun, music and drink’; this is a sign commonly seen on Irish pubs and it indicates the kind of atmosphere that these bars aim to create. The key to a successful bar is the atmosphere it exudes. Many of the Irish theme bars found abroad strive to recreate the ambience of bars in Ireland by playing Irish music and decorating the interiors with Irish paraphernalia.

Because of their large population of people of Irish descent, cities like New York and Boston have enormous St Patrick’s Day parades, where hundreds of thousands of marchers and millions of spectators parade through the city. But the American city of Chicago goes even further; since 1961 the Chicago River has been dyed green on St Patrick’s Day.

The tradition began by accident after a plumber, who was using dye to detect leaks into the river, discovered his orange dye turned green when mixed with water. City officials decided to add dye to the river to celebrate St Patrick’s Day, however during the first attempt they used too much dye and turned the river bright green for a week.

Well after spent 7 years enjoying the St. Patrick;s day in Dublin, I can never find the same feeling again here in China ! I miss you, Ireland, drinks and friends ! I will be back some day for sure ! Wait for me ~!

BECKS