Luck o' the Irish

There is one day every year when four out of five people on the street will be wearing green. And by god, that green will be bright. There will be green top hats, green sunglasses, green glitter, faux irish-red beards galore, and shamrocks will be worn without shame. In fact, there is more than a little pride. I am speaking, of course, of Ireland Appreciation Day.

Depending on just who you believe, the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, broke the paganistic Irish of their polytheistic ways through Christianity and/or drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Either way, he clearly did great things for the Irish.

St. Patrick's day is one holiday that the city of Boston absolutely relishes in. And with good reason: after the potato famine hit Ireland in 1847 the previously anglo-saxon city was flooded with the gaelic-speaking, Guinness-loving Irish Catholics. (What what.) Though at the time it was not a exactly a "happy" welcome for the puritanical community (...massive cultural ostracization), St. Patrick's day has gained so much popularity that it is practically against the law in Boston to not be Irish. (And we're the liberal state.)

Our Irish ancestors settled their large freckled families into the crowded neighborhoods of Boston: the South End, Charlestown, mostly anywhere along the waterfront. These brave men and women did whatever it took to feed their families: they pushed carts, they unloaded ships, they did a variety of other thankless and unskilled labors to put clothes on their backs and food on the table. And on the 17th of March multitudes of their descendants and jovial imposters acknowledge their bravery through shouting "éirinn go brách!", donning comically large (or small) green hats, parading down the streets drunkenly, and swigging Irish beer made in America that is dyed green. Just what they would have wanted, I'm sure.

This year the holiday fell on a Wednesday, but that didn't stop the bajillions of Bostonians and Irish-appreciating tourists from flooding into the streets, green blurs wobbling tipsily over cobblestone. There were vendors hawking all sorts of furry green hats, green mardis gras beads (only a dollar!), sausage (...as the Irish do?) and a thousand other green-themed unneccessaries. Hundreds and hundreds of St. Patrick's revelers milled around the entrances of Irish-sounding bars, hoping to pay a cover to get in at places that normally advertise two dollar beer. The Black Rose. The Kinsale. The An Tain.

In all honesty, it was a great way to spend the evening. Saturated by traditional Irish drinking songs, sipping cheap Guinness, and admiring the host of people decked in green: I have never felt so Irish. An bhfuil tú dálta fós?