Green madness has already hit the streets of New York as the city gears up for its St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Considering the stereotypical association with Ireland’s national Catholic holiday and being completely off your head drunk we asked New Yorkers if they would consider a sober St. Patrick’s Day.
Their answers were a little worrying. They said that’s “like a contradiction in terms. How is that even possible.”
A couple of the respondents felt it was utterly impossible to separate the Irish national Catholic festival day, which is meant to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, from booze.
They even went as far as saying that St. Patrick’s Day is utterly synonymous with alcohol.
One woman said, “The point of the day, to see how much you can drink. Thanksgiving is how much you can eat, St. Patrick’s Day, how much can you drink.”
Another man compared an alcohol free St. Paddy’s Day to “a Christmas with no presents, or Easter without chocolate, like a Tooth Fairy that leaves nothing under your pillow.”
Even an Irish tourist in Times Square said, “That would be against the religion of the Irish. You have to have a few drinks. The shamrock has to have a good drowning.”
Although these answers may not be particularly surprising, it seems that the message of St. Patrick’s Day is not being entirely lost. One local illustration of this was last week when the Lepre-Con pub crawl, the replacement from the Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day parade, took place. This fabricated boozy culture of St. Patrick’s Day seems to be taking the feast day away from its community roots.
Other Irish groups in New York are working on saving St. Patrick’s Day from this alcohol fuelled image. In fact the Sober St. Patrick’s Day event, featured in this week’s Irish Voice newspaper, is now in its second year and interest is continuing to grow.
Some of those New Yorkers we stopped realized the meaning behind this week’s question. One man replied, “I don’t know enough about St. Patrick’s Day to give an answer but I know what it has become which probably means that it has nothing to do with what it actually stands for.”
Another added, “The idea of St. Patrick’s Day has kind of slipped away from a lot of Americans.”
Check out our IrishCentral Video here
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Smyrnian | Mar 10, 2013, 08:03 PM EDT
Curtis and Anglo - you guys are hanging out in places I have never seen. Clean up your act!
whelanfred | Mar 09, 2013, 11:33 PM EST
Most people don't need a sober st patrick's day but alcoholics and addicts in recovery do. That is why the sober st patrick's day event was created. Good for Mr Reilly for being so out in the open. They have AA meetings at the sober event too.
curtisjohnson | Mar 09, 2013, 10:21 PM EST
keeping telling yourself whatever makes you feel better, big daddy.
anglo-norman | Mar 09, 2013, 08:15 PM EST
curtisjohnston- It's the TRUTH son...
curtisjohnson | Mar 09, 2013, 06:18 PM EST
anglo-nutzi - "...go to any Irish bar in America & you will see at least one Irish drunk in the bar boasting about how great his country is & how great the IRA are" This is made up and just low level trolling.
harkinog | Mar 09, 2013, 05:24 PM EST
St Patrick's Day in America is completely different to how it's celebrated in Ireland! First of all, no one in Ireland calls it 'Patty's Day'! Pubs used to be closed in Ireland on 17th March up until very recently!
anglo-norman | Mar 09, 2013, 01:53 PM EST
The Irish only have themselves to blame in all this...go to any Irish bar in America & you will see at least one Irish drunk in the bar boasting about how great his country is & how great the IRA are. Yet his great country cannot give him a decent living & he was too afraid to fight for his country.
MoeyFitz | Mar 09, 2013, 01:20 PM EST
Our family, now scattered around NY state, uses the day to get together with each other and friends to enjoy and celebrate heritage. Yes, there are drinks involved, but that's not the sole purpose for us. The gathering is the most important thing.
RobinForester | Mar 09, 2013, 07:37 AM EST
Drink is the curse of the Marching Classes!
AlunPalmer | Mar 09, 2013, 02:56 AM EST
It's not St. Patrick's Day without at least one glass of Irish beer. Sobriety is vastly overrated.
bobby | Mar 08, 2013, 09:41 PM EST
norman i bet you're a miserable dick, you sound like a creep.
merefalow | Mar 08, 2013, 05:29 PM EST
nothing wrong with sensible drinking,a hell of a lot wrong with being sick in the street,reeling and falling over,fighting and shouting and screaming ,being rude,stupid and boorish,and more importantly giving the irish a bad name(its not just the irish,all nations join in this and become honary irish for the day and they get plasterd because they think its what the irish do,and some do,a percentage,wish they didnt.
Stiofain | Mar 08, 2013, 03:38 PM EST
I know in the Los Angeles area the vast majority of people out own St. Patrick's Day are not Irish!There are to many Irish social clubs and private parties then to go to a "Berrigan's" etc.
EphraimKibbey | Mar 08, 2013, 01:35 PM EST
You have regular laws to handle this New York City. If you are drunk publicly, you get arrested; if you assault someone, you get arrested; if you drive drunk, you get arrested or worse. Why should all of the sober or moderate Americans of Irish decent be penalized for what might happen? The city should make the rules crystal clear before the parade and then enforce them rigorously during and after it. This is why we can't have nice things!
JEANTOOHEY | Mar 08, 2013, 01:21 PM EST
Good point Butch but having a sober st patricks day event is just like giving in to the negative stereotype and agreeing with it. You are still shining a spotlight on alcohol. Go hijack Cinco de Mayo and talk sobriety and see what the hispanic people say.
anglo-norman | Mar 08, 2013, 01:18 PM EST
The Irish only have themselves to blame for this stereo-type. FACT
Butch1 | Mar 08, 2013, 11:26 AM EST
It's pathetic that many Irish-Americans still believe in the stereotype of the drunk Irishman and that they have to drink until they make themselves throw-up to have a good time. They have been raised with the Hollywood version of what is "Irish" and really do not know anything about the traditional music, people and the culture. It isn't "Me lucky charms." and all that fake Irish accent "Leprechaun" talk you hear trying to pass for an Irish brogue. It gets rather boring and sicking having someone come up to you and say, "Top of the mornin' to ya." I'm Irish-American and I want to throw-up! If they could just visit Ireland and drop everything they think they know about it, they would learn they have been acting like fools. One can lift a glass but, this was really a religious holy day with a parade, for goodness sake not a Marty Gras.
electjohn | Mar 08, 2013, 11:10 AM EST
St. Patricks day celebration started in the US, and the Irish are always up for a party so our type of celebration spread to Ireland
antoman | Mar 08, 2013, 11:10 AM EST
In the backdoor and out the front. This will fool reporters into thinking you are leaving the pub and not entering it.
CitizenWhy | Mar 08, 2013, 11:00 AM EST
I agree that most New Yorkers want a drink happy St. Patrick's Day, if that's what you were asking. No great harm in it since St. Patrick's Day has ceased to be an exclusively Irish artifact and has become a sort of secular Mardi Gras for northerners and college students of all ethnic backgrounds. It is more St. Paddy's Day than St.Patrick's day and will probably just become Paddy's Day, like Valentine's day.
bostonrugby | Mar 08, 2013, 10:52 AM EST
There is only one set of winners on St Patrick's Day and that is DIAGIO, Pernod Ricard and to a lesser extent Beam. No ifs ands or buts about it...
jamieLM | Mar 08, 2013, 10:26 AM EST
There's a difference between having a drink or 2 and getting drunk and obnoxious and making a complete ass out of yourself. My husband and I, and all of our friends, have celebrated every St. Patrick's Day sober. We've never dishonored the day or ourselves by getting drunk. We belong to a large(750 )Irish-American club called "The Gathering". If anyone gets drunk in public on St.Patrick's Day, they're out of the club. Zero tolerance for drunken, rowdy behavior.
Nicopernicus | Mar 08, 2013, 09:28 AM EST
@-saraindc, Has it exactly right, Popular American culture loves to get hammed. USA Youthful exuberance seems to adopt whatever nation or culture necessary to rationalize getting blotto,.
JEANTOOHEY | Mar 08, 2013, 09:24 AM EST
I think the quesiton needs more context and is a loaded question. St Patrick's day is not about sobriety.
saraindc | Mar 08, 2013, 09:08 AM EST
Its all a matter of separation - lots of irish don't act like idiots on St. Patrick's day, don't get drunk and make a show of themselves. In fact, I live in Washington DC and have lots of Born and reared Irish friends - truth be told WE drink LESS than our American friends who think getting blotto on St. Pat's Day is the done thing - many who have been to Ireland have long since realized that mature Irish can be in the pub for a long time on a night out but because they are talking and chatting, they're not knocking back endless pints and getting stupid drunk. American friends on the other hand seem to think a night out is from 5pm to 7pm so they drink too fast, too much and end up talking and behaving like idiots - so its less about what your nationality is, its more about what kind of an idiot you are when you drink too much!! I'm sick of hearing the Irish are the drunks - looking around DC on Patrick's Day - the drunks are the local Americans who think thats how to celebrate the day! We get a lot of our drunk reputation from the drunks from other countries!!!
JimmieM | Mar 08, 2013, 09:03 AM EST
Are You Kidding Me?....this is the most sacred right in a big liberal city...the right to degrade your self, other wise they have nothing....
Nicopernicus | Mar 08, 2013, 08:53 AM EST
A billion people on this planet equate being Irish with being a drinker which is then celebrated on St.Patrick's day with the legal ability to be openly arsified. You develop an image of yourself and then you are repulsed by the outcome. Works for entire countries as it does for individuals. If the Irish want to be taken seriously on a world stage they need to rid themselves of the good time paddy crap. I love the quiet mystique of the country or city pub with the solitary writers eye staring into a glass of history...The Americanized t-shirt wearing youth emblazoned with his pride of being a drunk is not Irish..Its just stupidity.
JEANTOOHEY | Mar 08, 2013, 08:48 AM EST
The question definately needs more context and it a loaded question. There is more to SPD than alcohol. Asking africian americans this ? is of course going to get the reaction you wanted. Most people don't need a sober st patricks day -- addicts and people in recovery do -binge drinkers do. That is what the sober st patricks day event you mentioned is set up for. I guess to get corporate sponsors and media attention the organizers needed to present it as a general family event. It's a new sober enterprise which is big business. Irish culture is the star of St Pat's Day --not alcohol or sobriety.
barbmurphy1 | Mar 08, 2013, 07:58 AM EST
I think the Irish should do everything possible to change the image that the culture revolves around contant drinking. There is so, so much more to the Irish culture than that! Anyone who thinks one must be dead drunk to celebrate St. Patrick's Day (or anything else) needs to check in to a rehab center, sooner rather than later. Don't get me wrong - I don't oppose having a couple of drinks to toast an occasion, but that is different than drinking as much as one possibly can.