Montreal, Quebec, Canada
St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated in Montreal since 1759, and 2008 marked the 184th consecutive annual parade. Montreal’s citizens take this day very seriously and with intense pride. During the month before the parade, five young women of Irish decent are selected to sit on the Parade’s Court and one very lucky lass gets crowned as the Queen. Sunday, March 9th marked the anticipation mass at St. Gabriel’s Parish at 11:30 a.m. this year. On March 16th, parade-goers lined up on St. Catherine Street well before the noon start-time so that they could get a good view of Paddy, the parade’s shamrock mascot. At the end of March, the celebration continues with the Parade’s Awards Banquet (this year on Saturday, March 29th) at Buffet Sorrento in La Salle.
Rome, Italy
In Italy there is a crazy eight-hour pub crawl that takes the streets of Rome by storm, this year on March 17th and 18th. For twenty euro, the Irish, Romans, and all visitors unite by downing pints of Guinness, Irish whiskey, and green beer. The organizers of the crawl recommend that everyone comes out wearing their St. Paddy’s gear to show pride—and to receive one full hour of all the free beer a stomach can handle! This year, the pub-crawlers met outside of the Coliseum Metro Stop at 9 p.m. for a night of drinking games and contests, dancing, and Irish songs at five different bars and clubs in Rome’s party center.
Singapore City, Singapore
Priding itself as South East Asia’s original St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Singapore’s 2008 rendition started early at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 16th . Established by the nation’s Irish Business Association, this year only marks the third anniversary of the parade, but there are still some firm rules in place: everyone is a friend of Ireland, everyone wears green, and everyone must have fun. Guinness is an official sponsor of this year’s parade and hopefully next year’s too, so you can expect lots of entertainment, including the Singaporep force marching band and a lot more Irish music and dancing performances from local cultural groups. The parade, which starts at the Riverside, opposite of Boat Quay, also awards the Annual Founders’ Prize to the group who best embodies the spirit and pride of St. Patrick’s Day.
Dublin, Ireland
Ireland may seem like the obvious choice for St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s obvious for a reason—Ireland is what St.
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