It’s about more than the green beer and corned beef
I know that this will fall upon the ears of my fellow Irish Americans as sacrilege, but I have never really been a fan of the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. The hordes of amateur fake Irish with painted faces drinking green beer and getting the words wrong to songs never really appealed to me.
Yes, sure I have done my fair share of celebrating. Normally though it would be at a house party or a non-Irish bar. I cannot fault the Irish bar owners for charging covers and such. I know that this, much like the day after Thanksgiving for retail shops, is the day that they can make the lion share of their annual income. It’s the transient patrons that I can do without.
This year, as fate would have it, I was not in Hoboken for our parade, which happens on the first Saturday of the month. There were two reasons for this. One was that my friends Sean and Wendy who would normally have a party decided against it. They have a new, still fairly young Rottweiler and trying to handle her and our drunken friends would have been too much.
More importantly it was the day that my family was celebrating my goddaughter’s sixteenth birthday. She lives in Connecticut so I’d be nowhere near Hoboken all day. To be honest, as the day went on, I was glad to be missing it but dreaded driving back home. I’d be arriving in Hoboken right as everyone who’d been drinking all day were stumbling from one bar to the next, waiting on line and being boisterous.
Here in the NYC area St. Patrick’s has grown into more than just one day. It is very much now the entire month of March. Starting with Hoboken, moving on to Morristown and West Orange the next week, NYC on March 17, Pearl River that following Sunday and many, many more. This year I’ve decided to keep low key.
My ‘celebrations’ have seriously consisted of watching documentaries on the history of Ireland, St. Patrick, The Maze prison, the conflict and struggle for peace in the north and so on. No, I’m not going to give my opinions about the war here. This is purely about what I did this year for St. Patrick’s Day.
Yesterday being the actual day, I made it a point to avoid going into NYC for reasons that I mentioned above. I actually canceled a lunch with my friend Ana because she works on 46th and Park. To try and find a place to eat on the Eastside of Manhattan at 12:30 in the afternoon is just insane.
Last night I met my friend Mitch and his friends Adriana, Sarah and Martin for drinks at Mulligan’s (159 1st Street, Hoboken). Now I know what you’re gonna say. Why am I going to an Irish pub on St. Patrick’s Day? Well the truth is that since Hoboken had their parade almost two weeks ago, this day is centered on NYC. So Mulligan’s was no more or less crowded than any other Friday night.
It was a fun crowd. I hadn’t been in this building since back when it was called 159. In fact, the last time I was here was about 12 years ago when Hoboken was trying to enforce a 1:00 AM curfew. It failed. Now comes the no smoking ban in April and a threat from city officials that they will enforce the loitering laws which will make it impossible for smokers to smoke. We’ll have to see what happens when it happens.
On this night I noticed some of the changes such as the large back room for those that wanted to play pool. The back room where we used to dance (more or less) to the sounds of the early nineties still had a dance floor and a DJ. Now there was also a decent sized bar and a few pub tables. The place over all was a lot more warm and pub-like now.
After a very enjoyable and long night of fun, a bunch of us ended up at the Spa diner for a late-night snack. This is one of only two diners left in Hoboken and, much like the Malibu Diner, the food is seemingly only ‘good’ after seven beers and five shots over the course of six or so hours.
I walked off my heavy cheeseburger and fries back along the near mile to my apartment. It was a night of new friends and fun. What better way to celebrate the true spirit of St. Patrick which has nothing at all to do with green beer, beads, leprechauns, corned beef or rowdy drunkards puking in the street. Those, by the way, are very American ‘traditions’ that only in recent years have infected cities in Ireland.
Slainte! :0)
