In the winter of 2002 I took my family on an academic exchange to the west coast of Ireland. We traded jobs, houses, and cars with a family in Galway. This letter is part of that story . . .
We are leaving on an eight-day trip to Italy this weekend so I will be out of touch for a while. Just thought I’d drop a short note before then explaining a little about St. Patrick’s Day, which was celebrated this past Sunday.
Now, you probably want to know, right off the bat, did we go out to a pub, drink green beer, wear little green bowlers, and sing maudlin Irish songs? The answer is no. We did not go out. And to explain why, I have to back up to Saturday night. See, we have been invited out for a great number of pleasant lunches and dinners since we’ve been here, so we decided to throw a party on Saturday night and invite all the new friends we had made. We billed it as a Canadian-style party: I found some Canadian beer, Karen made butter tarts, and I made sushi (which is the fast food of Vancouver). Pretty much everyone we invited came. The Irish love a party. People showed up at the door that I didn’t even recognize. Like the people we had sat beside at the "horse" racing night. I didn’t know I had invited them, I didn’t know their names, but there they were with bells on. Anyway, it was a pretty good party, made all the better by the fact that it wasn’t our house so who cares what happens? Fire on the carpet? Put it out with a few bottles of red wine. No room to dance? Put the couch and arm chairs on the front lawn. It’s not raining that hard.
Actually, there wasn’t that much dancing. Karen and boys had packed a lot of their CDs from home, and these are what we played at the party. Good dance stuff: Fat Boy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Utah Saints, and some great CDs my brother has burned for me over the years. Mega dance stuff. But not for middle-aged Irish people. Our neighbors looked positively aghast. "Paul," says our neighbor Eamon, "I can nip next door and get some Leo Sayer CDs." You do and you’re a dead man, replies I.
Anyway, we asked a lot of our guests about what we should do on Sunday, St. Pat’s day. The universal response was go to the parade, maybe go to the pub around noon for one pint, then get the hell out of the drinking establishments and the city, rush home and batten down the hatches.
Wha?
Well, remember how I told you that 90% of the crime and most of the illness in this country was related to alcohol abuse? I wasn’t kidding. A recent newspaper article speculated that the Irish medical service is on the brink of collapse because of drink-related accidents. One quarter of all medical emergencies in this country are caused by alcohol-related stupidity. On weekends, fully 80% of the cases admitted to emergency are alcohol related. This number goes way up on St. Patrick’s day. The pubs become battles between man and booze, and the city streets the war. The downtown was described as a "drunken field party" the following day, and apparently public urination, vomiting, and vandalism reached heights not seen since the last Viking invasion.
How drunk were people? Well, remember the case of the man who got drunk and head-butted a van? Some guy on St. Pat’s day head-butted a wall. A wall. How drunk to you have to be do that? To reel out of a pub, turn to a stone wall, and start shouting, "What are you looking at? Hey! I’m talking to you! What are you looking at? You want a piece of me? Huh? You want a piece of me?!" before driving your forehead into the wall to teach it a lesson?
The wall won.
Now, here’s the magic question: why do the Irish get so hammered on St. Patrick’s day? The obvious reason is that since St. Pat’s is the national saint and drinking is the national pastime, it’s downright patriotic to mix the two on this day of the year. But the real reason is religious. See, St. Patrick’s day comes in the middle of Lent, and Lent is taken very seriously in this country. There are radio shows and newspaper articles on fasting and abstinence. People make public pledges to refrain from some pleasure for the pre-Easter season. I myself have given up liver for Lent. Not duck or goose liver, but cow and pig liver. Not a bite shall pass these lips until I see the Easter bunny, and maybe not even then.
Now, if you’re a good Catholic Irishman and you want to really feel the pain of abstinence, what would you pledge to give up? That’s right: booze. The most common Lent sacrifice is alcohol. The pubs get very quiet in the days before Easter.
But here’s the rub: by long tradition, St. Patrick’s day is exempt from Lent. It’s the Lent holiday from abstinence. So if you have pledged to give up drink for Lent, you can still drink on St. Paddy’s day. Indeed, you have to get 40 days worth of drinking into one day. And the Irish manage it. Hence, no sane person wants to be in a pub or downtown after about 12pm on St. Patrick’s Day.
So we just went to the parade in the morning. Actually we had to go to the parade since our youngest son was in it, marching with his school. It was a cool, wet, and blustery day, but the entire city turned out to watch. People had dyed their hair green, were wearing goofy green hats, and had shamrocks pinned to the their lapels. The parade itself, in best Irish fashion, was badly organized but heart felt. There were the requisite bands, the hoards of seniors, the school kids, the clubs and organizations. One truck carried a big hunk of stone. No explanation was given, but people applauded the rock enthusiastically.
The smallest and least impressive entry in the parade? The Irish Teetotalers League. It was comprised of exactly two old men, both wearing the hang-dog faces of people who know their cause is lost long before it has begun. No one applauded them.
That’s all for now. I have to pack. Coming soon: we conquer Italy.
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