St Patrick's Day
Just a quick note on St Patrick's Day. It's my SO's b-day and so we usually spend it running around town shopping as he refuses to work, a very sensible and Australian attitude.
We ended up meeting up with some friends and family for dinner but before we went to the Pancake Manor. And during this time we got to watch the crowds of people doing the irish pub circuit in the inner city. I can think of three, but i'm showing my age when I refer to them as the Treasury(which it's definitely not called), O'Malleys and Gilhooleys and I think there's another.
One of the things that's interesting to watch is the way that everyone bonds over their mutual pissup and celebration of Irish-ness. People who would never talk to each other at any other time of the year are friendly and helpful and joyous. One lass was trying to find a pub and asked a crowd of fellow green and orange wearers which way and ended up joining their crew at least past where we were.
Australia does have a lot of Irish immigrants and ex-convict families - it's part of our heritage makeup and in Brisbane an area of the Valley is sign posted in Gaelic. But most of us have never been there, have only distant roots and are only Irish on St Patrick's day, a pissup.
My favourite thing was the Guiness hats this year because in practicality one of the things about St Paddy's is it's a great marketting opportunity. Guiness produced these fantastic akubra styled hats with little corks made out of plastic Guinness pots. I really wanted to get a picture (or one, without having to do all the drinking and probable buying of multiple pots of guinness) because i think it's a great meld of commercialism and nationalism that only works in a post modern way. (See I'm a cynic with a sense of humour)
Btw all at dinner had a good time, and it seemed to be a pretty low key night out from what we could see of the pubcrawls.
We ended up meeting up with some friends and family for dinner but before we went to the Pancake Manor. And during this time we got to watch the crowds of people doing the irish pub circuit in the inner city. I can think of three, but i'm showing my age when I refer to them as the Treasury(which it's definitely not called), O'Malleys and Gilhooleys and I think there's another.
One of the things that's interesting to watch is the way that everyone bonds over their mutual pissup and celebration of Irish-ness. People who would never talk to each other at any other time of the year are friendly and helpful and joyous. One lass was trying to find a pub and asked a crowd of fellow green and orange wearers which way and ended up joining their crew at least past where we were.
Australia does have a lot of Irish immigrants and ex-convict families - it's part of our heritage makeup and in Brisbane an area of the Valley is sign posted in Gaelic. But most of us have never been there, have only distant roots and are only Irish on St Patrick's day, a pissup.
My favourite thing was the Guiness hats this year because in practicality one of the things about St Paddy's is it's a great marketting opportunity. Guiness produced these fantastic akubra styled hats with little corks made out of plastic Guinness pots. I really wanted to get a picture (or one, without having to do all the drinking and probable buying of multiple pots of guinness) because i think it's a great meld of commercialism and nationalism that only works in a post modern way. (See I'm a cynic with a sense of humour)
Btw all at dinner had a good time, and it seemed to be a pretty low key night out from what we could see of the pubcrawls.
posted by Chani Asha at 3:57 pm
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