March Issue 2025
St. Patrick’s Day
The Irish say they were “Christianized” in 432 when missionary Patrick showed up on the island, preaching Christ’s message of salvation. In Cashel, he told the High King of Munster about Jesus Christ, and the king accepted Christ as his Savior. Through the centuries, more and more missionaries arrived on the Emerald Isle, established monasteries, and spread the message of Christ’s salvation to the locals. By the 13th century, monastic settlements such as Glendalough, Monasterboice, and Clonmacnoise dotted Ireland and other islands in the Atlantic and the North Seas.
With all this religious history, it’s no wonder that St. Patrick’s Day plays such an important role in Ireland and Irish communities worldwide. North American cities with large Irish immigrant populations seem to get all the news coverage on March 17. Chicago throws green dye in its river, New York has a parade with bagpipes and more, and Savannah brings the celebration to another level along the waterfront. But nothing compares to Paddy’s Day in Ireland!
March 17 is a national holiday in Ireland. The Irish don’t have a July 4, Veteran’s Day, or Memorial Day like in the USA. St. Patrick’s Day is their sole nationwide day of celebration. Big cities like Dublin, Cork, and Limerick have several days of festivities, but even the smallest towns and hamlets put on a big show for Paddy’s Day. What we know as St. Partick’s Day traditions, such as corn, beef, cabbage, green beer, pinching when not wearing green, black and tan beer, and more, don’t exist in Ireland. Instead, they put on a lot of green, kick up their heels with a céili and step dancing, break out their instruments for a traditional music session, drink kegs and kegs of Guinness, and celebrate their heritage.
My first St. Partick’s Day celebration in Ireland was in 2005. Back then, my full-time gig was the band director at Ridgeview High School in Orange Park, Florida. I showed up in Dublin with sixty or so of my marching band students and their supporters to march down O’Connell Street, leading the St. Patrick’s Festival Parade. What a unique experience for me and my students to be part of this Irish national day of celebration! Back then, we were one of only a few groups from the United States. RTÉ, the national news, shadowed our group, filming and chronicling our experiences in Ireland.
Since that first experience, I’ve returned to celebrate Paddy’s Day with many other international marching bands in Dublin, Cork, Wicklow, Dingle, and more. The Dublin St. Patrick’s Festival has morphed into a three-day event, drawing a million or more people to its streets. In many ways, it has lost that unique nationalist feel and Irish pride we felt from our spectators and supporters twenty years ago.
But that heritage and national pride live on in Ireland’s rural counties’ fields, farms, towns, and streets. County Cork hosts a huge St. Paddy’s Day celebration with a parade around the streets of Cork City. The mayor invites parade performers into the City Hall and has fun interacting with international visitors. Rural communities put on street celebrations, hay wagon parades, and troupes of local performers fill the streets. There is nothing like experiencing St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland!
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St. Patty’s Day in Ireland 2023
2023 was the last time I was in Dublin Ireland for St. Patty’s Day. This video is a shortened version of my Travel Talk Tuesday (TTT) video from May 2, 2023, and it’s a nice little peek at the fun festivities you can experience on my Ireland Tours.