GREEN, GREENER → St. Patrick's Day! ☘️ 🇮🇪

The St. Patrick's Festival has been taking place throughout Ireland since last Thursday, and since it is a pretty big deal here, I want to write about my experience today.

In general, I was interested in what was behind all the hustle and bustle surrounding the festival. I asked several people, but no one could really answer it for me. From the 14th to the 18th of March, the Irish celebrate their own nationality and culture. The actual St. Patrick's Day (also known as Paddy's Day) is on the 17th of March, and in most cities in Ireland and some villages, there are parades and various other festival events. The biggest parade takes place in Dublin, but it is not necessarily "traditionally Irish".. but more on that later.

On the 17th of March, the death of Saint Patrick is actually celebrated, which is said to have played a significant role in the conversion of the Irish population to Christianity and driven the 'snakes' out of Ireland. According to their beliefs, he died on the 17th of March 461 or 387 BC.

The symbols that play a significant role in this are the three-leaf clover (the national flower) and the Irish flag. The three leaves of the clover represent the Holy Trinity - 'The Holy Spirit'. The colors of the flag also have a meaning: green represents the island and the Catholic population, orange represents the Protestants, and white represents peace between these two denominations.

Aside from the weekend, I was able to experience a lot of the festival at the care home where I volunteer. I've said it before, but I can't stress enough how much I love going there - and how well the people are doing! It's so great to see how passionately and warmly everyone takes care of each other there, and how every occasion, like St. Patrick's Day or Valentine's Day, is used for all kinds of events. For example, I helped decorate the rooms: window stickers; garlands; Irish figurines hung on the walls and doors... But what I liked the most was how most of the staff dressed up: from the manager to the cleaning lady, everyone wore at least one accessory, if not wigs or green tutus over sports outfits, just to make people laugh (successfully!). Every afternoon, an event was held, but I couldn't attend. I saw videos of the parade on Thursday: everyone was dressed up (many also self-made) and each lodge had a small show float, which all competed against each other in a kind of competition in the end. There was also a choir and a live band. The next day, I was there again in the morning and asked about the parade the day before.. and by the way the woman answered me, I could tell that she couldn't remember it anymore - very sad, but it makes me more aware again of how beautiful it is to live in the moment. At the moment, I can't imagine leaving all those people behind forever in 3 months, and knowing that they (at least the residents) won't remember me anymore.. These are the thoughts that often cross my mind. I also met the husband of a woman I spend a lot of time with last week. He expressed a lot of gratitude towards me, and in that moment I realized how difficult it must be for him to witness his wife gradually slipping away, and that no one can do anything about this process. I also believe that at a certain point, it is worse for the relatives than for the affected individuals themselves to live with dementia. This moment really touched me and definitely makes me think. But now back to the actual topic... On Friday, I also received a handmade badge and just before I left, I was allowed to take all sorts of costumes from the entire St. Patrick's costume collection for myself (and of course for as many friends as I want ;-) ).

I spent the entire last weekend in Dublin with other au pair friends. Many pubs were decorated and we also liked how some buildings were illuminated in the evenings.

On Sunday, it was time to get up waaaay too early for my taste, in order to arrive in Dublin as early as possible and secure a good spot to watch the parade. Some families are crazy enough to be there 3 hours before it starts - we were "only" 2 hours early (based on many recommendations). We were incredibly lucky with the weather: it didn't rain much (just a little bit) and the sun actually shone. However, it was very cold and after waiting for an hour, we were almost freezing.. at least I was. In the end, we waited for almost 3 hours because the parade would naturally not start on time. By the time we arrived, we already had difficulty finding a spot where I could see more than just the tops of people's heads. In the end, we were crowded together on the pedestal of the O'Connel statue with many other people, but we had a perfect view.

In general, everything reminded me a lot of the carnival parade in Cottbus - with the difference that everyone was dressed and made up in an "Irish" way. I would say that maybe 30% of the people were actually Irish, the rest were tourists. When you looked out over the crowd, all you could see were green hats and the colors of the Irish flag. This made me wonder what people would think or feel if such a mass of Germans were dressed in our national colors...

The parade differed from the one in Cottbus in that alcohol and party music did not play such a big role. Of course, some tourists who came to Dublin to celebrate were a little tipsy, but apart from that, I didn't see any schnapps bottles or beer cups before or during the parade. - But that doesn't mean it is not being consumed... After the parade (which was not sooo special by the way) ended, everyone went to the pubs, which were then packed. We skipped that.. We had previously bought tickets for an event called 'Sober St. Patrick's Day', which took place in a rather unknown cafe, or rather I would call it a "place to come together and meet people". It's a time cafe, where during regular visits you only pay for the time you spend there - a very cool concept in my opinion. The kitchen is open for coffee, tea, cookies, and popcorn; there are also different rooms for Wii games or other PlayStation stuff, for studying, and a living room with lots of board games. So we spent our time in the afternoon playing board games with other people or participating in organized group games (like Werewolf). There was also a henna workshop, a small magic show, and later, two guys who make music as a hobby and are just starting out, got the chance to sing and play guitar. Finally, we all smashed a piñata filled with sweets and sang a birthday song for one of the visitors. The afternoon was really nice, especially because of the pleasant atmosphere and the openness of the people.

Since we wanted to see Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, we later walked through Dublin with the two musicians who also live here. Especially the Temple Bar district was crowded, the atmosphere was quite lively, and I think today's holiday is good for everyone :D. Another example of the crowds is that there were actually bouncers in front of McDonald's at 1 a.m., only letting people in bit by bit, apparently due to the general rush. We also went to a party and paid an outrageous entrance fee, but we didn't regret it because in my opinion, we made the most of the day :-). I can understand that most Irish people stay away from Dublin on this day and watch the parade on TV instead - but still, you should definitely experience it once!

Maybe I'm being too detailed about irrelevant things at some points, but this blog is also meant to keep my memories alive so that I can always look back on the many moments :-)

Best regards, Hanna ❤️