Why oh why do we celebrate St Patrick’s Day?

I don’t like parades, and I couldn’t care less about floats or fireworks. Watching Dublin’s St Patrick’s Parade I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell we were all doing. What is St Patrick’s Day really all about?

We’re not celebrating an event in Irish history - nothing tidy like a day of independence or the birth or death of a founding father. We’re not celebrating St Patrick himself - a Welshman who may not have existed at all. Nor are we celebrating Christianity or anything to do with religion - we do plenty of that at Easter and Christmas.

So what’s it all about? Irishness? What the hell is that? Are we celebrating the ‘qualities’ that

define us as Irish? If so, What the hell are they? Friendliness, loving a laugh, the craic? Jesus Christ, I hope not. We are, after all, a nation, not a stand-up routine.

Ask any of the other half-million lining the parade route; I wager you wouldn’t get a consistent answer out of them. One thing struck me though: the sheer number of recently arrived immigrants at the parade, most of them totally gung ho for the whole spectacle. Maybe St Patrick’s Day has most meaning for them; a way of celebrating their new home and, in some small way, aiding what must be a pretty tough assimilation.

That’s a pretty good reason to have a parade.