Friday17th March 2023 is St Patrick's Day, or Paddy’s Day, as non-Paddy's call it. On this day all Americans suddenly affect an Irish accent and get teary-eyed talking about God's Country and the hardships and sacrifices their ancestors had to make to leave the Emerald Isle and embark on a treacherous voyage in search of the Promised Land. They ended up in Boston.

In honour of their imaginary family tree, every year, all Americans put on Guinness hats and ginger beards, and throw up outside bars, screaming ‘tap a tha marnin’ at the ‘tap’ of their voices.

Unsurprisingly, St Patrick’s Day celebrates the life and death of St Patrick. Of Ireland. Patrick is the foremost Patron Saint of Ireland, who was born around 385 and died on 17th March 461 and he is famed for bringing Christianity to Ireland, and since 461 there has been religious harmony all over Ireland.

As it was only the 5th Century, the only information that we have about St Patrick comes from the ‘Declaration’, a parchment that was actually written by St Patrick himself. According to the Declaration, (St Patrick was born on an island of the coast of Ireland called England), at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. It says that he spent six years there working as a shepherd and that during this time he found God. The Declaration says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to take him home. When he got home, his missus went crazy. He said he was only ‘popping out for a quick half’. He describes himself as ‘short, ginger, GSOH, likes Lucky Charms, hates sunlight. Time wasters need not apply’.

Oh. St Patrick also reckoned he drove snakes out of Ireland. Legend has it that he stood atop of a mountain and banished the snakes into the sea. However, research suggests snakes never occupied the Emerald Isle in the first place. There are no signs of snakes in the country’s fossil record and water has surrounded Ireland since the last glacial period. Before that, the region was covered in ice and would have been too cold for the reptiles. Patrick was such a big bullshitter, as the ‘kidnapped’ and snakes stories highlight, that in the year 436 he became the first leader of the Conservative Party.

Today, St Patrick’s Day is celebrated all over the world, but especially in America. It is said that there are approximately 36 million Americans who claim Irish ancestry, 6 times as many people as there are in Ireland. So they party. Hard. With traditional Irish drinking, traditional Irish singing, traditional Irish dancing and traditional, Irish horizontal dancing (hence the 36 million).

St Patrick’s Day, and its parades, became increasingly more popular in America in the 80’s, when America's Number 1 Irishman Marky Mark Wahlberg, as part of the Funky Bunch, took his shirt off, pulled his pants half way down his butt and did an Irish jig. Everyone felt the Good Vibrations. Ben Affleck joined in, because he wanted to be Irish too, and Matt Damon joined in, not because he wanted to be Irish, but because Ben Affleck told him to. They started talking funny, and made a load of films that sounded like they were in a foreign language, but it was them just trying to do an Irish accent. Mel Gibson was their voice coach, apparently.

We can’t talk about St Patrick’s Day without mentioning the G word. No, not God (although he’s pretty popular with the Irish, especially the religious ones), but Guinness. Guinness is proof that there actually is a God. It is a magic potion, made by Leprechauns in the hills of Dublin, that not only provides you with all your daily nutritional needs, but it turns you into Michael Flatley. It is made from tar and requires a knife and fork to consume. No St Patrick’s Day is complete without a skinful of the ‘black stuff’. Word of warning. Don’t look in the toilet the next morning. Just flush. It looks like a giant magicians wand. Which ironically you’d need to make it disappear!!!

Slainte