St. Patrick's Day- Ireland Style

At home, celebrating St. Patrick's Day often turns into a day where one drinks green beer and watches a parade filled with various floats and children marching to show their "Irish" pride. In my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, there were a record 13,000 people marching in the parade, let alone the thousands who watched it. Personally, I've never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day, so my experience in Dungarvan on March 17th was a new one.

The first event of the day was to meet the mayor of Dungarvan and a few council members outside of the civic offices to raise the Irish, American, and Erie flags. With time for a few (more) group shots, we then headed off to mass at St. Mary's church. While I'm not Catholic, I still appreciated being able to go to mass on one of Ireland's biggest holidays. We were pleasantly surprised to find that they mass would be done predominantly in Gaelic! While I for one don't think I'll be learning the language anytime soon, it is certainly a treat to hear it spoken well. Ireland seems to be one of the only remaining countries with its own unique language, and the people are working to keep it alive as a part of their heritage.

After mass, we had a small break for lunch and then congregated outside the Park Hotel to walk to the Parade route. Tom Keith was standing by as always with American, Irish, Erie, Dungarvan and Waterford flags for us to carry, as well as a large banner that announced Mercyhurst's presence in the festivities. Many Dungarvan and Abbeyside citizens came out to support the parade. We stopped in the square and got up on stage so that we could watch the remainder of the parade- there was a lot of St. Paddy's Day spirit in such a small town. Our personal favorite float payed tribute to golfer Tiger Woods! Not the most "PC", but all in good fun.

Overall, the day was a huge success, with the people of Dungarvan once again welcoming us with open arms. I've always heard that St. Patrick's Day wasn't as flashy in Ireland as in the US, and perhaps that is true. But seeing the spirit of the Irish people alive and well, I can say that even without the green beer it was a wonderful experience to be able to participate in their celebration.