St. Patrick's Day

There are many different degrees of celebration all over the world and when I think of St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland something lively & loud like Mardi Gras in New Orleans comes to mind.  Perhaps St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, or even Galway comes close and I’m sure the pubs were overflowing with patrons dressed in green. Maybe not so much this year. There was another cold snap that came in over the weekend, so we decided to partake in our local celebration.  Still froze our arse’s off!!

For the past few weeks we’ve seen all the store windows decked out in green and Irish flags flying everywhere.  On the big day there were numerous events all over town – a rubber duck race in the Shannon (cancelled due to the weather ☹) 

Drummers (just outside the library – haha)

In the park there was face painting, petting zoo, bouncy houses & military & Garda displays.  Of-course the parade earlier enough in the day so no one had to miss the "big game". The parade was like any Fourth of July parade we’d experienced back home.  

The most visible difference being rather than Red, White & Blue everywhere, it’s Green, White & Orange.  Parade participants included old men in uniform, kids marching from every organization imaginable – including the scouts, bagpipers, cars, clowns, drummers (my favorite) and St Patrick himself. 

PHOTO ALBUM