St. Patrick's Day

Just a late note on St. Patrick’s Day. Because St. Patrick’s Day is now celebrated everywhere, becoming more of an occasion for those with Irish blood now living outside Ireland. Before coming to London, I assumed that the English would probably avoid this holiday, and most things Irish in general, simply because of the fraught history between the two countries.

This is an absolutely untrue and pretty unfair assessment. Turns out there are a lot of people in England with Celtic ancestry, who want to do justice to the small holiday.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day a little closer to its homeland, a pub chain in London (we can ignore for now the fact that there are actually a few of these bars in the States as well) called O’Neills (fittingly) was pulling out all the stops to go Irish. Bartenders were wearing full out green, white and orange. Pints of Guinness were buy one, get one free. And they were even giving out these cool top-hats to anyone who asked for them. (Side note: these can cause a surprising amount of controversy. Who wants what hat? Where did my hat go? Stop stealing hats!)

Needless to say, St. Patrick’s Day is just as big here as it is in the States. Unfortunately, I don’t think they dye the Thames River green like they do in Chicago, but the feeling is still here.

Besides that, who wouldn’t want to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? An excuse to have some fun in the middle of otherwise boring March? Yes, please.