Another St Patrick’s day has passed, and I’m glad that I wasn’t a part of it. I’m not a hater of having a special day to totally annihilate yourself on alcohol (especially midweek), I usually tend to stick to my birthday for that. But I do have an issue with St ‘Patty’s’ day, especially how it’s celebrated here in Australia. Saint Patrick’s Day originated as a religious holiday in Ireland, where after lent the restrictions on what you ate and drank were lifted. Now, it’s become a celebration of Irish culture worldwide. I’m fine with that, I like cultural celebrations, last night I celebrated my favourite cultural pastime by going and watching a film and telling my friend not to talk to me for one and a half hours. I had totally forgotten it was St Patty’s day last night until my friend told me he had seen a girl vomiting into an emptied popcorn box, and I turned the corner and there straight in front of me is a line up out the front of an Irish pub. I could stop with the girl vomiting at 8pm as that basically sums it up for me, but there are five main reasons why I can’t stand St Patty’s day that I feel the need to share with you.
Not our day: Australian’s are great at propagating things from other cultures, we’ve basically done that with everything good from New Zealand, and like when two ‘mates’ help each other out we call that uniquely Australian - it isn’t. So we’ve taken to St Patty’s day and embraced it whole heartily because it fulfils two of Australia’s treasures: 1, beer, and 2, lots of beer. According to the 2006 census, 50,256 people in Australia were born in Ireland, and there were about 12 million people in the Irish pubs yesterday, I’m no maths brain but I’d say the percentage of those who were actually Irish would be fairly low (*the 12 million is purely an estimate). And don’t give me the whole my ‘great great grandmother’s auntie’s best friend was Irish so that’s how I’m Irish’, that’s like to say I’m African because my primordial ancestors migrated from there…!
Green hats: They look ridiculous. That is all.
Bogans: Whenever something becomes popular, e.g a music festival, the bogan swarm attacks on mass. Like locusts, they move in, destroy what was once there, and then move on to the next crop. St Patty’s day is a bogan excuse for doing what it likes to do best: getting drunk, getting more drunk, getting rowdy, punching on, getting kicked out, then vomiting.
Irish pubs: They are everywhere, all around the world, and I don’t understand the appeal. They are usually dark and damp, smell like piss, filled with old dudes who haven’t been able to see their feet in decades, and have a number of crappy old beers on tap.
Guinness: This might cause some controversy but Guinness is…wait for it… crap. It’s like drinking dark, thick, bitter soup that causes your stomach to bloat and your ass to expel it. Its like if you ordered a really shit dessert, liquefied it, and then attempted to drink it. And your other choice, for the St Patty’s enthusiast is… Victoria Bitter, obviously Irish. It does have green in the logo though, does that count?
So I’ll stay on the outside when it comes to St Patty’s day, nothing against the Irish, but I’d rather not spend my day expelling crap beer that has added an extra 5kg’s to my body weight, dodging through crowds of smelly dudes in green singlet tops and trying not to look them in the eye in case they swing a punch, and then getting to the toilet and realising nobody has used the urinal. Call me soft, call me boring, call me a prude, tell me to lighten up, but I still won’t be taking part. The problem is, both St Patty’s and Australia Day are already ruined, what have we got left? Queens Birthday? Get me a scone and a pint of beer, pronto.