No Pride for Paddy

 Orna takes a deep breath and looks back into the far distance of the rolling green landscape. Two more steps and she is there. At 1085 meters Orna Mulhern reaches the peak of the Snowdon mountain in Wales. Today is St. Patrick’s Day but the young Irish woman doesn’t care about that.

Orna on the hike, Photo: Orna Mulhern

This is the first time Orna has missed Ireland’s most important annual celebration. A three hour ride on the ferry brought her away from the island and now she is in the middle of Snowdonia National Park in Wales on a hiking trip with the mountaineering club of the National University in Galway. The Dubliner remembers the times in her childhood when she used to be excited about the parades in her hometown. Nowadays, St. Patrick’s Day has lost the importance to her and she believes visitors are more thrilled about the event than Irish people.

“The thing I don’t like about Paddy’s Day is the expectation that you have to get drunk or that it is promoted in that way,” says the 24 year old. “All the St. Paddy’s Day things are so gaudy, I don’t think that represents Ireland; it’s just a day off,” adds the girl with the shoulder length brown hair. Orna pulls up the zipper of her white waterproof jacket and smiles as she starts walking downhill.

Ireland’s national day has been successfully exported to the rest of the world. Each year the same pictures of green hats, green sunglasses, green wigs and all kinds of shamrock variations appear in papers of major cities from Dubai to South Africa or London. The biggest parade is not in Dublin but in New York and even the Berliner Fernsehturm is illuminated in green.

The American President Barack Obama cheers with a dark foamy Guinness to celebrate March 17 and many emigrants from the Island join him today. Taoiseach Enda Kenny is also touring in the United States during the celebrations. The day is a winner for the suffering Irish national budget. About 120,000 tourists are expected to arrive in Dublin for the wild and lively parade and they are estimated to donate over €40 million to the Irish economy.

Snowdonia National Park, Photo: Donn Morrision

“I think it is great that it is a tourist attraction and I hope they have a great time but a lot of what they see is teenagers getting drunk and I think that is embarrassing really,” explains Orna showing her dislike of the one day madness.

So, what is St. Patrick’s Day about? Is it to create the biggest touristic event of the year, to keep stereotypical images of the evergreen happy Irish way of living alive or to have an excuse for drinking more Guinness than usual?

According to the tradition the patron St. Patrick brought Christianity to the island. Since 1903 Saint Patrick's Day has become an official public holiday and the first parade was held in Dublin in 1931. The institutional St. Patrick’s Festival group set up with the aim to promote Irish culture in the world and to provide celebrations for people with an Irish heritage. In 2009 close to 1 million visitors took part in the five day festival and that is what the government would like to reach each year.

Back at the youth hostel, in the valley near the village of Beddgelert, Orna changes into a white dress adorned with flying birds and places herself on a brown leather couch. The cheeks of the young woman are slightly red and the look in her eyes is tired but confident. 

“I didn’t make a note of leaving. Even though I think a lot of Irish people are happy to leave Ireland for the day,” says Orna. She joined the mountaineering club half a year ago and frequently attends their regular Sunday hike. “You feel alive when you are hiking,” she comments. Orna moved to Galway to do her degree in teaching of the Irish language. Her final semester in college is going to end very soon.

It is easy to find Orna anywhere in the hostel. Her laugh is remarkable in tone and duration. She giggles all day long and the people around her can’t help but join her. Orna believes St. Patrick’s Day should be a day when everyone is doing something special that he or she wouldn’t normally do. “I way prefer to spend my day at a mountain than at Eyre Square with a can in my hand,” she says.

Orna isn’t the only person who criticises the celebration of this day. “I'm not a big fan of St. Patrick's Day,” says Aengus Finnegan, the captain of the club. “It seems to me to be a celebration of the most banal aspects of Irish identity, with a focus on aspects of Irish culture which would only appeal to a person who engages with the country at a very shallow level, “ he continues but adds that he likes the community organised parades in small villages and towns.

The 27 year old is originally from Glassan in County Westmeath and is doing his Phd in Galway.
“I don't like the anti-social behaviour, and the fact that many people see the day as an excuse to misbehave,” he criticises. 

The Christian church frequently questions the secularisation of St Patrick's Day. As much as the festival tries to put the focus on marching bands, theatre performances and dance groups, excessive drinking in pubs remains to be the main attraction of the day.

Orna walking downhill, Photo: Tanja Goldbecher

When the sunset reddens the stony top of the surrounding mountains most of the club members are gathering in the cozy common room of the hostel. Open beer and wine bottles lighten the atmosphere. A tall woman walks in donning a green white and orange hat whilst swirling around a green glitter kilt; a female St. Patrick parading in Wales. A fiddle and a flute player are supporting the image with the traditional Irish tune “Inis Oirr”.   

“It’s accepted that people spend the day in the pub,” says Orna while lifting her delicate eyebrows. She would like more local events and community based things to dominate the festivity. In her opinion St. Patrick’s Day just turned into a drinking event and nothing of the celebration represents anything that actually is Irish. “There is a difference between going out for a drink or going out to get really drunk,” she states. On this night in Wales no one is 'really' drunk but nearly everyone is drinking. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.