A CASE FOR SAINT PATRICK'S DAY

A CASE FOR SAINT PATRICK'S DAY

I used to be one of those that was so rebellious that I would buck social trends. Valentine's Day? Pfft, that's for people who are forced to show their significant other that they care. St. Paddy's day? Bush league amateur hour in terms of drinkers who just needed to find an excuse to chug back beers and have the excuse that it's socially accepted to drink in excess today.

Not anymore. I think there's something to it. I mean, I always celebrated this very non-Irish holiday by cooking corned beef, which in its very nature is just not Irish in the fucking slightest. So perhaps I had to reexamine the very nature of what I didn't really like about this day and then just learn to embrace it.

Because yeah, Corned Beef is by far not something they do in Ireland, where meat from a cow is pretty sacred and scarce compared to the amount of beef we have in the U.S. Besides, in Ireland it was soups and potato based foods. A fisherman's pie or cottage pie. Some cabbage, carrots and potatoes. The more than likely scenario is that Irish immigrants to the U.S. found a sort of kindred spirit in the Jews, another background that was getting shitted on by the majority, and that corned beef process was adapted by the Irish as a staple American thing.

Much the same, St. Paddy's day in the U.S. is celebrated far more than it ever would be if you were in Ireland as an actual thing. So in a sense, to celebrate St. Paddy's day is basically to celebrate an American tradition and that in itself should make it A-okay to do. The justification to chug back those things that represent a sort of home away for a new home here. The same way that Cinco De Mayo is celebrated here far more than it is in Mexico and is by no means an actual independence day of the such. But it's one that Mexican Americans have attached themselves to and perhaps that should be enough to make it an official thing worth celebrating.

I guess that's a new way of looking at it. Or, hey, just imagine that it's a decent way for the Bostonian folks to thin each other out with all the fights and blood about to be shed this weekend. At least that aspect makes me smile.