PADDY’S DAY – DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IT!

Next Monday is St. Patrick’s Day – and the publicans rub their hands in glee. You see they hate it when it falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday because the weekend is not latched onto it, and therefore turnover, and hence profits falls down.
We mention the publicans first, not out of any malice towards them, but rather to get the priorities in their correct order when it comes to describing the manner by which the majority of people celebrate the Holy Day of their Patron Saint.

Frankly, this scribe finds the whole parade business a lot of bullshit. Trucks, tractors, vans and jeeps pull tacky, garrulous floats up and the cities and towns of the country. The streets are lined with freezing cold children who are pissed off after the first ten floats pass by and want to go somewhere else.
Those who are not freezing on the footpaths are slowly dying of hypothermia standing on the back of some grossly themed display that nobody can understand, but may have some deep artistic meaning known only to those who devised it in the first place.
In many cases, the only reason that adults are lining the route along with the kids is because of the booze-up that will take place all day afterwards in the bars and hotels throughout the country. You will later that night find those same freezing kids asleep in the corner of some pub whilst their auld fella drunkenly sings a rebel song by which to remember St Patrick.
The parade will have high-kicking American high school bands and every conceivable brass band that exists in the country will be out in force. This is their glory day and a perfect opportunity to show their talents to what they wrongly perceive to be an adoring public. Every voluntary organization from sports clubs to scouts will dress up and make the effort to enjoy being gawked at by the crowds on the pavements. The only reason they are there at all is that some local busybody with plenty of time on their hands (think public servant) has decreed that the town must have a parade. It doesn’t matter about the quality, just get the quantity. Oh, the madness of it all!
Have you ever tried to go anywhere on a Paddy’s Day in Ireland? Actually drive somewhere in the country when you logically think that the road are quiet and free of trucks and commuter traffic.
Maybe you wanted to visit your mother in Ballydehob, or your grandchildren in Kiltimagh, instead of getting pissed out of your brains down at the local.
How do you get there? Every town and village across the state has a parade. They all start at different times, usually from 11am to 4 pm. There is traffic chaos in and around these places as the parade first lines up on the outskirts of the venue, and then proceeds at a snails pace past some local dignitaries (probably more public servants) standing on the back of a trailer in the middle of town.
So you sit there in your car, fuming as some jumped-up local community volunteer, elevated way beyond his status by the wearing of a high-viz jacket, tells you cannot move for an hour because of this very important event.
The country towns are the worst offenders for the quality of the parades. Anybody who has a business in the area, particularly if it involves wheels, is encouraged to come along.
It is probably an ego upper to be asked to partake in the first place, so Mickey Joe with his ten identical tippers trucks will put the whole lot on show, all clean and shiny.
Not to be outdone, John Joe, who owns the local skip hire business, will lash a dozen identical skip trucks into the convoy.
Of course, Willie Joe, with his agri-machinery business, will get star billing with combine harvesters and tractors with all sorts of contraptions attached to them. Naturally, Willie Joe will be piloting the lead machine and because of the slow pace of the parade, he roars down to potential customers along the footpath. Never one to miss a sales opportunity is our Willie Joe. The kids in crowd go wild when he invites some of them on board and the farmers whisper enviously on the street about the cost of the fancy equipment he has on display.
Add to that, every car-dealer in the area will have all their models on display in every available color, resulting in a tailback akin to what would be on the M50 on a Friday evening.
Meanwhile, you the unfortunate hoor that just wants to see your mother or grand children are forced to watch and wait whilst all this unfolds slowly in front of your unadoring eyes.
When you finally get moving, you are not on the road for twenty minutes when lo and behold another high-viz power junkie waves you to a halt at the edge of a village and the whole exercise is repeated.
Except, this time it is worse, because in addition to the local entries in this parade, you realize that the cars, trucks and skips from the last parade have made their way from the last place joined in as well! This is common practice in rural areas and ensures that the last parade in a particular county will be the longest
So there are you stuck again, having a Groudhog St. Patrick’s Day experience all over again.
Willie Joe is there again, sure enough, and him still roaring out of the combine harvester. Not that you can hear anything of course, because Mickey Joes’s tippers have mighty powerful air horns. Star attraction in this town is those twenty-three artics and trailers belonging to local hero, Paddy Joe’s International Transport and his air-horns are even louder than them feckers in the tippers!

You curse yourself for not going to your own local pub and getting pissed like everybody else. You are now stranded halfway to your destination and with no chance of seeing the mother or the grandchildren.
You are left with no alternative but to do a u-turn and head back home.
Just to put he finishing touches to your Paddy’s Day, a couple of miles out the road another high-viz jacket appears at a roadblock and informs you that you are 30 kilometres over the speed limit and dishes out a ticket and two penalty points!

Sure isn’t St. Patrick’s Day great crack altogether!