Up Close: Paddywhackery

Monday, March 21, 2011

Paddywhackery

Did you see that? No? I suppose you blinked and missed it. Well if you must know, that was my St Patrick's weekend. It passed in a blur, work was slightly mentally busy. I didn't get to go and drown the shamrock, I was working the whole weekend, in fact as I'm writing this I've just finished day 6 of 7 before I get my two days off.

I didn't feel left out or felt like I was missing something awesome by not heading out on Thursday night decked out in green and downing pints of Guinness. I think I was out on Paddy's night only once and decided it was more that enough to last me a lifetime. I think I would enjoy it more outside of Ireland, the Yanks seem to know how to throw a good St Patrick's party (even though some of them still call it St Patty's which really annoys me but on that maybe another time, eh?). A Finnish blogger who lives in Amsterdam tells me they have the best night out of the year on Paddy's night.

So what it is about St Patrick's celebrations in Ireland that I find so hard to get swept away with? It's the general messiness of it all really. It seems like nothing more than an excuse to act like a total eejit (one of my favourite irish-isms there), getting too drunk and generally not knowing where you're coming from, where you're going to and shouting how proud you are of being Irish before getting sick on your own shoes. Even driving through our local village on the morning after made me depressed; half-drunk pint glasses of Guinness and Bulmers left on walls and windowsills, broken glass, plastic Irish flags and shamrock hats littering the ground. And this is only a small village we're talking about here. I can only imagine the dread filling the street sweepers' minds on the morning after Paddy's day before heading into work.

So, I spent my Paddy's weekend safely at work getting into the festivities in another way. Here's a few photos of what we got up to.