I saw this great leprechaun on a poster on NUIG campus today that caught my attention. So, I thought I would give you a taste of St. Paddy’s Day events coming up in and around Galway with some fun facts about the holiday in general.

The leprechaun was advertising the Voluntary Services Abroad Céilí which takes place tomorrow at Cuba on Eyre Square. What’s a céilí, you ask? Well, it’s a Gaelic social dance that is popular especially around St. Paddy’s Day. The céilí is usually accompanied by a fiddle, flute, tin whistle, accordion, and bodhrán. The VSA céilí is on at Cuba Thursday, 15 March in Cuba at 8 pm for €5 with free admission to the nightclub after. Proceeds to benefit VSA in their mission of medical students that bring supplies to developing countries around the world. I plan to go because it supports a wonderful cause and sounds like great craic!

St. Paddy’s Day is celebrated all over the the world with parades, céilís, festivals, and drink. Here’s a sampling of what’s going on this week. Dublin will host over 200,000 people for it’s parade on Saturday but that’s only the icing on the cake. The official St. Patrick’s Day Festival in Dublin actually starts Thursday and will continue until the bank holiday on Monday the 19th. So much for St. Paddy’s Day, now it’s basically a week! Meanwhile, New York City lays claim to the largest St. Paddy’s Day parade in the world, which boasts 2 million spectators. To put that into perspective, that’s about twice the population of Dublin! I guess it makes sense considering so many Irish emigrated to NYC in the 19th and 20th centuries.

As for St. Patrick’s Day in Galway, there’s plenty in store. Some of my German friends are planning a pre-drinking brunch Saturday morning that “should soak up some of the booze 2 come” as one of them said in a text to me earlier today. Then, we’ll head into town for the parade which starts on the west side of the River Corrib and makes its way up Dominic St to Bridge St, up Mainguard then Shop St before finishing around Eyre Square. This parade is pretty impressive for a small city such as Galway, as it will attract over 50,000 spectators. That’s about 3/4 of the population of the city. The route will pass within one block of my apartment so I won’t need to go very far to be part of the action. Finally, the Town Hall Theatre Galway Céilí is on at 9 pm which will feature Breton and Irish Dancing.

So while you other Americans are pretending to claim Irish heritage on Saturday and think celebrating St. Paddy’s means turning Budweiser piss water green, I’ll be having a proper pint (pints) of Guinness and listening to some authentic Irish tunes.

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