PollyannaMom
I was a click-clack champ!!
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- May 16, 2006
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Would you be more likely to attend a St. Patrick's Day event (around 4-7pm) on a Saturday or a Sunday? (The actual holiday is a Monday this year.)
Where I live Saint Patrick’s day is a month long celebration (brutal when I had Irish dancers to pimp out to bars, parades and parties). Since there are a finite number of pipers/drummers, local parades are held the weekends before the holiday (NYC is on the holiday). My daughter is flying home from South Carolina to go to local bar crawls on 3/1, the day of our parade (with a special Mass at my Catholic Church. Since the parties start after the parade, plenty of kids around the drunks. Local elks and knights of Columbus open their “lodges” to the public.In Ireland, St Patricks Day is a national holiday, which is similar to American Federal holiday. The parades and events are held on the 17th March, no matter what day of the week it is. Also in Ireland, St Patricks Day is a family day, so events are family events. Its only tourists who think its a day to party and get drunk.
All bars here are open on Sundays, the latest one here closes at 3 am.St. Patrick's day is always 3/17. As far as I know, bars are closed on Sunday's. If you are referring to someone's house party, probably depends on the age of the participants since young children need to be home to get to bed in time for school on Monday. Probably matters less if everyone is an adult.
Weirdly, our local St Patrick's parade is March 1 this year???? They are strange here.St Patrick's Day here in Chicago is always celebrated on the Saturday closest to the 17th. This year it will be March 15th. When my son, Vince, had his very large St. Pat's Day parties, they were always the same, the Saturday closest to the 17th.
St Patrick's Day in Cleveland always started with Mass at St Colman Church before the parade.In Ireland, St Patricks Day is a national holiday, which is similar to American Federal holiday. The parades and events are held on the 17th March, no matter what day of the week it is. Also in Ireland, St Patricks Day is a family day, so events are family events. Its only tourists who think its a day to party and get drunk.
I think it depends on where you live. I can trace my great grandparents through records, so I know when they arrived at Ellis island (Irish and German), my grandmother came over from Scotland as a child. Living very close to Ellis island, I can literally see where they lived (none went very far, my mom’s extended family lived in Jersey city for a few generations). There are a large pocket of irish and Italian Americans here, 1st to 3rd generation. As for Saint Patrick’s day, I think most of us are celebrating our relatives who came over and built a life during a difficult time, through hardships. That’s why we celebrate differently. ETA I just checked my dna results, says grandma is from Scotland and my other relatives are from Ireland and Germany. It was actually disappointing.I hope this doesn’t sound patronising or offensive to anyone, it’s a genuine pondering I always have about the US and the St Paddy’s day celebrations and Irish links in general. I know that lots of Americans have ancestry going back to Ireland, but just as many have ancestry to England, Germany and the rest of Europe but it just seems that lots of Americans seem to refer to themselves as Irish but you don’t here people refer to themselves as English or German. Some of those calling themselves Irish probably only have ancestors born in Ireland several generations earlier and have probably never even been to Ireland but they seem to still refer themselves as Irish. I know Joe Biden used to tell everyone how Irish he was but from what I can tell his Irish connection is from generations ago and is less Irish than me. My great grand parents were from Mullingar in Southern Ireland before they moved to England and my wife’s mother was Northern Irish but neither of us would regard ourselves as remotely Irish, proud of our Irish heritage, but we would never class ourselves as English-Irish or anything like that.
As I said I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, Its just always been something I think of from watching US tv shows and movies where people who are clearly not Irish refer to themselves that way and I always wonder why that is?
America is a melting pot -- we (our ancestors) nearly all came from somewhere else. It's much moreso than folks in European or other countries.As I said I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, Its just always been something I think of from watching US tv shows and movies where people who are clearly not Irish refer to themselves that way and I always wonder why that is?
I hope this doesn’t sound patronising or offensive to anyone, it’s a genuine pondering I always have about the US and the St Paddy’s day celebrations and Irish links in general. I know that lots of Americans have ancestry going back to Ireland, but just as many have ancestry to England, Germany and the rest of Europe but it just seems that lots of Americans seem to refer to themselves as Irish but you don’t here people refer to themselves as English or German. Some of those calling themselves Irish probably only have ancestors born in Ireland several generations earlier and have probably never even been to Ireland but they seem to still refer themselves as Irish. I know Joe Biden used to tell everyone how Irish he was but from what I can tell his Irish connection is from generations ago and is less Irish than me. My great grand parents were from Mullingar in Southern Ireland before they moved to England and my wife’s mother was Northern Irish but neither of us would regard ourselves as remotely Irish, proud of our Irish heritage, but we would never class ourselves as English-Irish or anything like that.
As I said I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, Its just always been something I think of from watching US tv shows and movies where people who are clearly not Irish refer to themselves that way and I always wonder why that is?
If you are referring to someone's house party, probably depends on the age of the participants since young children need to be home to get to bed in time for school on Monday. Probably matters less if everyone is an adult.
Here in the UK we are a complete mongrel race made up from all sorts of weird and wonderful places like the Romans, Normans, Celts, Vikings, Anglo Saxons and on and on. I wonder maybe because though England has been settled since the Norman conquest in 1066 that we’ve finally sort of just thought as ourselves as British. In the US though I suppose on the scheme of things it’s a young nation and as you say it’s a melting pot of nationalities who many still cling to their recent heritage…where here most people probably don’t have a clue where their ancestors came from, they just think as themselves as Brits.America is a melting pot -- we (our ancestors) nearly all came from somewhere else. It's much moreso than folks in European or other countries.