St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone, and I’m already thinking about next year’s festival! For me, March 17th is a full-fledged day of drinking, partying, family, friends, green face paint as well as yummy corned beef and cabbage and Irish soda bread. I usually stick with what I know: you can find me every year on 5th Avenue in New York City wearing my shamrock antennas in my green hair, watching all of the sexy firemen and bagpipers march down the street with pride.
You don’t have to be Irish to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day; in fact looking around me, this year I noticed that most of the revelers around me were not of Irish decent. As they say, “everyone wants to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day,” and now I’m eager to see how everyone else celebrates this fun festival.
Well it seems that from the Far East, to the Middle East, to your hometown, there is a place for all of the world’s citizens to celebrate the spirit and pure fun that is St. Patrick’s Day. Here are a few celebrations I missed this year, that I’m considering planning a vacation around next year:
Auckland, New Zealand
Auckland does it right with not just one day of festivities, but a full week-long St. Patrick’s Day Festival. The warm up includes three days of celebration of Irish wit and humor—this year’s festival featured the show “Och but I Dunno” and a screening of Studs, a movie that focuses on football (soccer for us Americans). Friday the 14th started off with morning masses at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and ended with a free party bus pub crawl to the four official St. Paddy’s Day bars: The Bog, The Thirsty Dog, The Clare Inn, and Claddagh Irish Pub. On Saturday morning, the famous Queen Street parade kicked off at noon and featured a performance from an Irish band called Fleadh outside of the Town Hall.
If a more refined celebration is required, the Auckland Philharmonic performs When Irish Eyes are Smiling at 3pm at the Aotea Center and later in the evening, there’s a banquet at the Hyatt Regency at $180 a plate. No matter how much people have partied the night before, they will never miss Irish Fair Day at Seddan Fields with Gaelic football and hurling tournaments the next morning. The closing of this spectacular week is always on March 17th with the Green Fire Islands concert featuring the best Irish musicians from across the globe. Why this big extravaganza? Nearly 20 percent of New Zealand’s population claims Irish blood and according to this 20 percent, those who don’t wish they did.
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