St. Patrick of Ireland… And anywhere else the Irish have a home…

March 17th –St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day is, in North America, a bit like Christmas. It is always coming. But St. Patrick’s Day is about so much more than green beer and leprechaun dolls. For the Irish-diaspora, especially the Irish in America, St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of heritage. But it is also about making new traditions. You can use St. Patrick’s Day to focus on tradition, or art, or just having a good time. But fundamentally St. Patrick’s Day in America is a celebration of how the Irish came into their own in America. How they helped build America, and how the American experience remade what it meant to be Irish. By making St. Patrick’s Day such a grand and public celebration –a day when truly anyone could feel Irish in America– the Irishmen and women of a century ago showed the world that the Irish emigrants who had helped build so many American cities had also become, truly, garishly, grandly and loudly America. So today we wish you the best to all of you sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of the Irish diaspora and to all of you Americans who feel Irish today. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.