St. Patrick’s Day – No Thanks
Sat., March 13, 07:48 AM
The big St. Patrick’s Day parade in New Haven is held on Sunday – the fourteenth, in this case. St. Patrick’s Day, of course, is on the seventeenth, but you’ll excuse me if I post a little early.
Every year I write something like this about St. Patrick’s Day. The newspapers won’t ever print it, because St. Patrick’s Day is, first and foremost, about marketing. They would lose advertisers if they didn’t support the holiday. (The managing editor of my local paper is also very Irish.) I understand their thinking, but I still refuse to observe it.
I wasn’t always that way. Obviously, this is not my holiday – I am not Irish by birth, marriage, or residence – but I manage to accept Christmas, as well as other holidays that my friends enjoy. Some of my friends are “professional Irish,” so proud of their heritage that you’d almost forget they’re U.S. citizens. (One guy I know even carries an Irish passport in addition to his American one.) I love to see my friends have a good time, and I am usually happy to assist.
St. Patrick’s Day is especially festive in New York City, where the parade down Fifth Avenue is so huge that bands and marchers are assembling in the side streets for thirty blocks. About the only way to cross the avenue that day is to get on the subway at Grand Central Station on the east side and ride to Penn Station on the west side. No one is particularly annoyed, because it’s just a big party.
It’s a big party in Boston now too. New Haven advertises that its parade is the biggest between Boston and New York, as well as the oldest in New England. I was kind of surprised about that, until I remembered about Boston and its “no Irish need apply” signs.
However, several years ago, the Knights of St. Patrick made a public statement to the effect that St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday, to be observed only by good Catholics. It was an exceedingly offensive announcement, and I was offended. I’m still offended. They don’t mind taking my money for greeting cards and decorations, but they don’t want me, because I am not Catholic. Go stick it in your ear! Show me no green carnations, green bagels or green beer. I’m not playing.
“Oh, no,” says my friend Gloria, who wears the map of Ireland on her face. “They don’t mean you. That was for all the fairies.” Excuse me? I just don’t see the relevance. Why should some people’s homophobia stop others from participating? They supported Irish independence as much as all the others.
More than a hundred years ago, a well-known actress said – perhaps in defense of Oscar Wilde – that people should be able to do whatever they wanted, as long as they didn’t do it in the street and stop the traffic… She was right, of course, but isn’t that what the parade does?
However, on a similar subject, some things do improve. Remember when Bosslawyer turned down a case and I said I didn’t understand? Recently, he agreed to help that same young man. He won’t appear for him, as the guy seems to be doing all right by himself. However, he will look over the papers and advise him over the phone, and he is doing this pro bono. I am please to see that, evidently, his conscience won out.
