St. Patrick’s Day: Danger or harmless fun?
It is the day after St. Paddy’s on the University of Guelph campus. People are wandering around as if it were Sunday morning. The grogginess of their night perceivable through their collective gait. No one questions the out-of-place hangovers or the reason half of them can’t even remember why they woke up where they did.
It is St. Patrick’s Day: the day where “everyone is Irish.” It is a day embraced as a time to drink to your hearts content, and then keep going, regardless of the actual day of the week, or what work needs to be done. If you’re wearing a shamrock, you’re totally justified. There are parties in every city and an abundance of green costumes, like a Halloween in March.
A question that many of you may eventually ask yourselves is “why.” Why is it okay to kill yourself drinking (hopefully not literally, although it happens every year), and drink consistently from sun-up to sun-down?
Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m just as willing as the next student to day drink once in awhile. I’ve got no issue with spending the night at a bar (or multiple) or attending keggers with hundreds of people. That’s pretty standard for university life. However, in comparison, St. Paddy’s is a day when that all happens at once, but worse than usual. It is rife with day drunkenness that lasts well into the night. Many students abandon whatever safe drinking practices they have developed so far and “go hard” from 9:00 a.m. until around midnight.
And for what? To celebrate a dead Irish saint? No. To pretend to be the worst kind of Irish caricature? Probably closer. Simply because it’s an excuse to drink all day and get as drunk as possible? I think so.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]…single-most misunderstood holiday in North America.[/pullquote]
Does anyone actually consider what being Irish for a day means? It sure as hell doesn’t end with putting on green clothing and drinking. Yes, drinking is a thing that Irish people do, but they don’t “go ham” all day. University life doesn’t really provide a hospitable environment for a sipped drink. Guinness is not a beer meant to be shotgunned, in the same way you shouldn’t be staggering drunk by 11:00 a.m.
In a university ecosystem where we have become hyper-aware of cultural appropriation and how to interact with people around us, how do we continually perpetuate the abhorrent desecration of this culture? In the words of the popular Last Week Tonight segment, “How is this still a thing?”
St. Patrick’s Day should be a day where we celebrate our lives and a culture that is integral to the country we live in. Don’t put on high-speed music that ups your heartbeat and calls for getting smashed. Put on Irish folk music, or even East-Coast Canadian music. Have some drinks with friends, but don’t over-do it. By the end of the day, your plans will have been fulfilled rather than ruined by a mid-afternoon puke, or passing out at 4:30 p.m.
So the answer to the question “Why” is this: we don’t understand. I would go so far as to say St. Patrick’s is the single-most misunderstood holiday in North America. We don’t know why we’re drinking, but more than that, it seems like many of us don’t know how to. Many people around the world drink for recreation, and most of them know when—in the name of self-preservation—to stop. That knowledge seems to get lost with the sun on St. Paddy’s.
You do not even need to drink, that part doesn’t really matter. You can find your reason to celebrate (and only drink if you want). For myself, the day is a chance to celebrate my Irish heritage. It’s like Canada Day for my ancestry instead of my country.
Educate yourself if you get a chance. Talk to someone with Irish heritage, eat some potatoes, read about the IRA, or listen to some great old-tunes. But for God’s snakes, don’t pound back brewskies from 9:00 a.m. onwards and assume you’re doing it right because you bought the t-shirt and the paint you put on your face is the same colour as a wild flower’s leaves.