Festival Fit: A St Patrick’s Day Odyssey

While refuelling in an Italian restaurant on St Patrick’s night, I had a ringside seat for three fellas and a burly young lady pucking the heads off each other out on the street. It started me thinking about what our national day actually means.

Earlier, I had passed a fella sitting on a step, covered in blood, being helped by his friend and a bouncer as they awaited an ambulance. I walked past a pub and
appreciated the comic value of an announcement from the front-man in the beleaguered band: "No more requests. You're all too fuckin' drunk. Stay the fuck away from me!"

As ugly as these scenes sound, they didn’t tarnish the day. If anything, they provided a fitting finale.

It was late St Patrick’s night in an Irish city centre; everything was as you’d expect it to be. It was what had happened earlier that day that I found surprising.

I should have guessed things were going to be out of the ordinary as I left Kilkenny early on Sunday morning and passed two street signs that prophetically informed me "St Patrick's Close".
I agreed and wondered if it might also be notification that Paddy has started job-sharing with the Holy Spirit.

The sun was at its brilliant best as I wound through country roads. I half expected Snow White's animated feathered friends to wing in the window for a bar or two of Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah in jig time. They didn't need to as the spoken equivalent was piped in directly on the wireless in the form of Sunday Miscellany on Raidió Éireann.

I should have known that my weakness for this particular S&M would be exploited on this of all days.

By the time I drove through
the impossibly quaint village of Inistioge, things were so perfectly "Fáilte Ireland " that I was almost ready to pull on the Gathering Geansaí for Laughing Leo.

The first destination of the day was Duncannon, Co Wexico, for what is reputedly Ireland's only St Patrick's Day Parade on a beach. It would have been negligent not to go for a gawk.

I positioned myself on Costa del Duncannon’s stretch of strand when, lo and behold, St Patrick made his way down the slip, followed closely by the Campile Pipe Band, a clatter of vintage vehicles, a top-shelf selection of tractor-porn, scouts, schools, a schooner and, finally, the rest of the villagers, who happily milled about on the beach among floats and participants when the parade had ended.

Not only was I privileged to attend this fun, “daycent”, old- school and wholesome community parade, but St Patrick’s clobber on the day solved a mystery for me. Pat’s footwear revealed the origins of that most ecumenical of summer foot fashion: the sock and sandal.

As I made my way back to Kilkenny for Tradfest, I stopped off at the ruins of Dunbrody Abbey, which stood silent and deserted between slow-moving clouds and the calming green fields.

To say I was having a fitting St Patrick’s Day is an understatement akin to saying that Amy won’t be asking Brian to nip out for a couple of stamps for another week or two.

Later at Tradfest in Kilkenny, Martin Hayes & co were in full flight. From his skipping and dancing feet to the spring of his curls, he played the fiddle with every ounce of his being. It was a wonderful way to spend the evening and it felt special to watch a reel master at work.

I didn’t mind running the gauntlet of green-tinged violence after the gig – I felt inoculated against it.

I may have happened upon the true essence of Irishness on St Patrick's Day: Duncannon's parish priest in a tricolour wig, with Elton John shamrock sunglasses, smoking a fag, aboard a 60-year-old tractor in a parade on a beach.

Safe travels, don’t die.