St. Patty's Day

Today the entire world is Irish and I was at the epicenter of celebration. Or maybe not.

Brittany and I headed into Dublin City around 10 am to meet up with Laura and catch the parade running down O’Connell Street at noon. Taking the bus into the city centre was an adventure in itself because of all the people decked out in green, and I think about ninety percent of them did not speak English, our first clue that we might not be partying it up with the locals. I did however mention that I too was a local everytime I met another local. "Oh, you've lived in Dublin your entire life, as did all your ancestors? I'm a local too! I'm studying at UCD for four months."

On the bus we did see a lot of Irish people going to church. St. Patrick’s Day was a completely religious celebration until about the 1990s when Dublin started having a parade instead of being upstaged by New York and Chicago (and no, they do not dye the River Liffey green.) The pubs in Dublin were not even open for St. Patrick’s Day until 1995! I hesitate to even imagine of all the profit they missed out on considering I was in the Temple Bar today and they were charging 18 euro for a Jagerbomb.

We walked around a little once we got there and treated ourselves to Shamrock Shakes from McDonald’s which was more of a taste of home than a taste of Ireland. We found a spot by the parade route and waited for the parade to start. I anticipated a nice parade with a lot of Irish dancing and people dressed up like leprechauns, perhaps throwing Lucky Charms into the audience, but this was not the case with the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade. The theme was “Extraordinary World” and the costumes and floats were kind of odd looking and very colourful. The irony is that thousands of people came from all over the “extraordinary world” to see an authentic St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Ireland and it featured nothing Irish. It was a beautiful sunny morning though.

A taste of the "Extraordinary World"

After watching a great deal of the parade we made our way over to Croke Park, the sports stadium here in Dublin, to watch hurling and Gaelic football matches. This is what the locals do on St. Patrick’s Day and we had a lot of fun. Hurling is an interesting game because it’s like field hockey but also unlike anything that I’ve ever seen. You can not only hit the ball with the hurling stick but also catch it and throw it. They even “dribble” the ball on the end of their stick while they run.

Playing some hurling

Line up for one of the teams. It contains: 3 Gallaghers, 3 McGourtys, and 2 Kellys.

The match was between the Ballyhale Shamrocks from Kilkenny and Port Omna. The man in back of us explained the rivalry between the two counties and claimed that this was supposed to be a great match. At the end of the match, however, he said that he was wrong and it wasn’t that exciting. I still found it entertaining and this is for sure something that I can’t do in Chicago.

After the hurling match finished it was time for Gaelic football, another very old sport from the Emerald Isle. This game is similar to rugby and today was the national championships between St. Galls and Kilmurray. Laura especially liked this sport because it reminded her of her “footy” team back in Australia.

Some football players. In the background is the Hill 16 Standing which was made from the rubble of the 1916 Easter Rising as a sort of memorial.

Those men that look like lab technicians are actually the refs. They wear white coats.

At half time I got a text from my friend from U of I Sarah. It is a little known fact that I actually knew one person going to UCD and living in Dublin before I came overseas. It turns out that my friend/brother Jane’s roommate is dating a guy that goes to UCD named Hughey and I met him once while he was visiting U of I. It turns out that he is my RA here and Sarah moved here after she graduated from U of I in December. Anyway I see both of them frequently around campus and they were going to be at Croke Park today as well so we met up and I sat next to them. It was really nice sitting by Hughey because he could answer all the questions we had and Sarah is so sweet. Hughey also looks out for us and reminded us numerous times to stay out of the bad neighborhoods today and to talk to the police about where the buses could pick us up.

Sarah and Hughey

After the game finished we headed over to Temple Bar to meet up with Jen and her friend. I’m sure I’m not surprising you when I say that it was extremely crowded in that area of town and by that time most people were beyond drunk. We spent a little time there but we were so tired after our non-stop past couple of weeks and the crowds were too much. I felt like a local because I was so annoyed by the thousands of tourists.

It was a great day that was unforgettable. We got to do the tourist thing by seeing the parade and going to Temple Bar and also hung out with the locals at the GAA Championships.