Against St Patrick's Day
Monday March 17 2008
St Patrick's Day shames me. It's the only day of the year where I wish I wasn't Irish.
Each time March 17 comes around I have tried to overlook my disgust at the way our national holiday is "celebrated". Each year I vow not to venture onto streets festooned with litter and people that act like they are auditioning for a part in the next Night Of The Living Dead movie.
It usually starts positively enough with a mass turn out for the parade -- a ritualistic procession that's improved in content over the years, particularly in Dublin where the organisation has injected some international glamour into the event.
But once that's out of the way, Ireland turns ugly. And the Irish seem keen to embody every national stereotype going. We become a nation of boorish, loutish drunks, prone to violence. And that behaviour isn't just confined to the teenagers who treat the day in the same way that they do when they get their Leaving Cert results. Its behaviour that's common to an older set too, people who really should know better.
Some like to think that we've cleaned our act up in recent years. Don't believe a word of it. The vomit on the streets will attest to that come tomorrow. As will the poor souls who work in A&E departments, or the gardai, or, God love them, the street cleaners.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but for a 'party-loving nation', we throw a lousy knees-up.
- John Meagher
