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Greensboro. N.C.
noDi
St. Patrick’s Day continues rowdy traditions
Davis Green
Staff Writer
A little more than a month ago, those peo
ple lucky enough to have a partner got to
hear the rest of us bitch and whine about
Valentine's Day.
"It's over-commercialized." "It's too exclu
sionary." The validity of the holiday was
challenged by people who claimed that
Hallmark had more invested in the holiday
than the Catholic church.
Worry no longer, holiday purists: St.
Patrick's Day is here!
Between heart-shaped-box-of-chocolates
day and giant-creepy-chocolate-egg-hiding-
rabbit day, St. PatriA's Day is a beacon of
pure Catholic tradition shining forth in virid-
ian and emerald glory.
Just kidding. The traditional Irish dinner
of corned beef and cabbage was long ago
replaced with green beer and whiskey as the
preferred method for celebrating all that is
Irish, at least on college campuses.
The story of St. Patrick is intertwined with
facts and myths. What is known for certain is
that he was kidnapped as a child and taken
to Ireland. After escaping and finding his
calling as a missionary, he decided to return
to the island of his captivity and convert the
non-believers.
He was quite successful. St. Patrick is
credited with establishing Catholicism's
foothold on the island and building a num
ber of monasteries. The two most famous St.
Patrick legends are the sermon from the hill
top that eradicated the island of its snakes (a
metaphor for the conversion from paganism)
and his use of a shamrock to teach the idea of
the Christian Holy Trinity to his converts.
Now we celebrate the man, the myth and
Ireland.
People will tastefully hang shamrock
cutouts over doorways and adorn dinner
plates with home-cooked corned beef. On
campus, the story will be a little different.
Some argue that Valentine's Day is point
less. But if St. Patrick's Day ever had a point,
it has largely been forgotten. Almost as
shamelessly as we use Valentine's Day to
promote chocolate and rose sales in the
name of love, college kids will use St.
Patrick's Day as an excuse to imbibe Irish
libations in the name of faith and celebration.
Look no further than our own Harris
Teeter, where Guinness and Harp - tradition
al Irish stouts and lagers, respectively - were
both recently put on sale.
Sure, many students are not old enough
to drink, and many others will simply
dioose not to partake. That being said, it is
hard to miss the economic drive fueled
almost exclusively by breweries.
The commercialism of St. Patrick's Day
will shine on campus. In honor of St. Patrick
and Ireland, the "of age" population will
surely imbibe in green stouts and beers.
Valentines Day and St. Patrick's Day are
two of a kind. Originally good-natured reli
gious holidays, the two have now been
appropriated by American consumerism.
It could be worse, I guess. It's hard to
deny that today will be, as the old ads say, "a
good time for a Guinness."§€
Landry Haarmann
Irish
Photo Editor
It's a day of debauchery and rowdiness. A
night where you go out with your buddies
and see who can drink an "Irish Car Bomb"
fastest. It's a holiday when, for one night,
regardless of where your family is from, you
too can be Irish.
I, on the other hand, am Irish all year
roimd. Don't be fooled by my name, the
majority of my family hails from the
Emerald Isle. Just take a look at my pale,
freckled skin.
For my family, St. Patrick's Day has
always been a day of cultural recognition, a
day when I can acknowledge my hertage
and rub it in your face that my ancestors
know how to celebrate!
And celebrate we do.
Despite hectic schedules, two working
parents and children with too many
extracurricular activities, my family always
managed to find the time to celebrate St.
Patrick's Day as a family.
My mother would make the St. Patrick's
Day staple, corned beef and cabbage, a
meal which combines two cultures, Irish
and Irish-American. Cabbage has always
been popular in Ireland, and Irish
immigrants used corned beef to save
money.
During dinner, my sister and I received
small gifts from a "leprechaun," generally lit
tle triiikets, which usually were Irish sym
bols and paraphernalia.
My family would also watch the classic
movie "The Quiet Man." The
movie tells the story of a retired
American boxer who returns to his
native Ireland after the death of his
father.
In general, the evening spent with my
family lacked any sense of
rowdiness or debauchery and was a rather
nice recognition and celebration of heritage.
I get the suspicion that, being away from
home, my St. Patrick's Day will not be as
quiet.
Of course I'll wear green, give the evil
eye to those wearing orange, and flaunt
my Irish pride like I do every year;
but this year's celebration will be
different.
I will not be with my Irish-American
family. I will not be in New York City, with
its dense population of Irish-Americans. I
will not get to eat a lovely home-cooked meal
of slow-simmered corned beef and
cabbage. Instead, I'll get to eat what ever the
cafeteria is serving. Yum!
Despite straying from my normal
celebration, I feel like this St. Patrick's
Day will be fun. This will probably
be the rowdiest St. Patrick's Day of my 19
years of celebration, but how could
a Friday night on a college campus,
which just happens to
coincide with St. Patrick's Day, not be?
I'm willing to sacrifice a home-cooked
meal for fun, boisterous times with friends,
because what better is there to do
on a rowdy holiday than celebrate your
youth and pride with friend?3€