On being Irish and loathing St. Patrick's Day..

When it comes to the bar scene, I've always been a bit of a Debbie Downer. If I'm to sit around and drink with friends, I'd rather do so in the comfort of someone's apartment, away from any sort of scene and pressure to look three times better than I normally do. Bars are smokey, loud, crowded and often full of people hoping to be seen. It's also expensive. In other words, it's just not been my thing.

As someone of Irish decent, you'd think I'd throw it all to the wayside for this one day of the year when everyone gets to be Irish. At the risk of sounding like a complete asshole, I confess the whole perspective of St. Patrick's Day in the U.S. is one I find utterly offensive. Well, except when it comes to Shamrock Shakes at McDonald's. Otherwise, it's all a load of crap.

St. Patrick's Day is a day of feast during the period of Lent. St. Patrick's Day has always been a religious holiday but is still rather young as a public holiday. The public holiday was created with the hope of celebrating innovations and culture in Ireland. Of course, Irish innovation to most of us means drinking something other than Guinness, like Smithwick's or Murphy's, or pouring some Bailey's into your coffee. Irish culture means we all strive to look like leprechauns and douse ourselves in green hats, green beads, and green t-shirts from Old Navy. Little known fact, by the way; the first color associated with St. Patrick's Day was actually blue.

The thing is, there's really nothing very Irish about how we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. In fact, I went to Ireland just before St. Patrick's Day in 1999 and recently confirmed with a friend who went to grad school there that Irish natives simply hole up in their flats on the day, hoping their windows are not broken by drunk tourists throwing rocks at the glass.

I simply challenge you to take a religious holiday of any other country or culture and bastardize it the way we've done with St. Patrick's Day and see if you don't get the crap kicked out of you by an angry mob. I dunno. Again, I guess I just need to lighten up. Maybe listening to Enya all day is too depressing to count as a celebration of culture. Guess I'll stick to watching Pierce Brosnan movies instead.