As you may have noticed, I love to play dress up (hello Halloween, hello Full Moon Party). Good times are 1,000% guaranteed with any opportunity to wear stupid things on my head and draw on my face.
St. Patrick’s Day (Paddy’s Day, as the locals call it) in Dublin, Ireland was complete madness!
The day started out at the St. Patrick’s Festival Parade, where I climbed atop a bus stop along with a bunch of kiddos for a perfect view of the parade.
If the kiddos pictured here look a bit bored, confused or slightly frightened, there’s a reason for that. And no, it wasn’t my overly enthusiastic jumping around like a leprechaun high on acid.
The parade this year was based on a short story titled Brilliant. It was written by Roddy Doyle and specially commissioned for this event.
Brilliant is a story about Ireland banishing the metaphorical “black dog” of depression that has plagued the nation for the last three years. Most of the story being brought to life on the floats centered around Ireland’s near-bankruptcy and the recent EU/IMF agreement that brought them out of it.
Ummm…yay?
Truth be told, it was kind of a downer! The music was heavy and some of the floats were a bit scary. I sat amongst children for the entire parade, and I did not get the sense they were enjoying the show. It was way too dark, if not confusing (what the heck did these kids know about the recession?!). There wasn’t much of a celebratory energy in the air.
Where were all the dancing leprechauns? The shamrock confetti? The walking pints of Guinness?! Haha.
All that aside, I can still appreciate the work and artfulness that went into the floats and costumes. Here are a few photos:
The real fun began after the parade with about 16 hours of partying in the Temple Bar district. The medieval, cobbled streets of this lively Dublin quarter were packed with people. The festivities went a little something like this:
Ohh, SUCH good times with my friends Vneet, Sean, Cathy, Andreas, et al. And thank you to my buddy Phong for gifting me those sock sleeves back in Vietnam! They sure came in handy for my Paddy’s Day get-up.
For more stories and photos of my travels through Ireland, click here.