Happy St. Patrick's Day to All!
Green beer and leprechauns... not really, but when they were there it was to please the American tourist.
This morning started with Mass in the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin that was celebrated completely in Irish. The traditional Irish language is gorgeous, but it is not pronounced like it appears on paper, so even following along was incredibly difficult. The music however... AWESOME! I didn't get the blessing to spend St. Patrick's Day Mass with the folk choir, but with the diocesan choir of Dublin who actually sang two or three (tree) of the songs that we would've sung. It was so neat to see that we at Notre Dame do a rather impressive job of remaining authentic to the tradition of our homeland. (Ireland... not the actual homeland of Notre Dame which would be France.)
We then just walked toward the music. Sadly it was American pop music that was blaring over most of the speakers... We found ourselves a nice pub right along the river Lithy to grab a pint or two in before we headed over to the parade. The parade was easily the biggest let down of the day in that we didn't even stay long enough to see it. We stood on the route for for more than 30 minutes and decided that we would just head back to the pub to watch it on TV with fewer people pushing us around. It turned out to be a smart decision. All that we could get out of the parade was that it was Pan's Labyrinth themed... in other words it was odd and almost disturbing without any consistency or relation to Patrick's Day.
Obviously the day wasn't ruined. We headed towards Croke Park to watch both of the GAA matches that happen every Patrick's Day. It too was quite the atmosphere. My second ever Hurling match and my first ever Gaelic Football match. Pretty exciting stuff!!! After dinner in yet another pub (with water to drink) I said my fare wells to the crew from Wexford and will be catching a bus to the airport tomorrow morning.
Overall, St. Patrick's Day in Dublin was fantastic, but not because of the parade or the big to-do's but because of the atmosphere and the general sense of community that everyone seemed to feel for each other.
Green beer and leprechauns... not really, but when they were there it was to please the American tourist.
This morning started with Mass in the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin that was celebrated completely in Irish. The traditional Irish language is gorgeous, but it is not pronounced like it appears on paper, so even following along was incredibly difficult. The music however... AWESOME! I didn't get the blessing to spend St. Patrick's Day Mass with the folk choir, but with the diocesan choir of Dublin who actually sang two or three (tree) of the songs that we would've sung. It was so neat to see that we at Notre Dame do a rather impressive job of remaining authentic to the tradition of our homeland. (Ireland... not the actual homeland of Notre Dame which would be France.)
We then just walked toward the music. Sadly it was American pop music that was blaring over most of the speakers... We found ourselves a nice pub right along the river Lithy to grab a pint or two in before we headed over to the parade. The parade was easily the biggest let down of the day in that we didn't even stay long enough to see it. We stood on the route for for more than 30 minutes and decided that we would just head back to the pub to watch it on TV with fewer people pushing us around. It turned out to be a smart decision. All that we could get out of the parade was that it was Pan's Labyrinth themed... in other words it was odd and almost disturbing without any consistency or relation to Patrick's Day.
Obviously the day wasn't ruined. We headed towards Croke Park to watch both of the GAA matches that happen every Patrick's Day. It too was quite the atmosphere. My second ever Hurling match and my first ever Gaelic Football match. Pretty exciting stuff!!! After dinner in yet another pub (with water to drink) I said my fare wells to the crew from Wexford and will be catching a bus to the airport tomorrow morning.
Overall, St. Patrick's Day in Dublin was fantastic, but not because of the parade or the big to-do's but because of the atmosphere and the general sense of community that everyone seemed to feel for each other.
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