craic

And following on, a happy St. Patrick's Day to y'all! Diddly-dee-diddly-doo-begorrah-top o'd'morning-t'ya, etc.........

I experienced a couple of true Paddy's Day on the Emerald Isle. Basically, it went like this. The night before, one went out, got completely rat-arsed, sang a couple of pro-IRA songs at the end of the night, and found one's way home.

On St.Patrick's Day itself, one nursed their hangover, finally getting out of bed around tea-time, then one went out for some more craic, pretty much repeating the antics of the previous night.

The thing was it was just like any leisure-time in Ireland. Nobody gave a jot it was St.Patrick's Day. You don't need to give the Irish an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion.

The only people who give a monkey's about St.Patrick's Day are everybody but the Irish!

Maybe I should've properly celebrated Paddy's Day?

Because, thanks to some diligent genealogy work by Mum, we've discovered my great-great-great grandparents were from County Down. But they didn't take the usual route to Liverpool, like all the pissed-Paddies did when they got on the wrong boat in Dublin Port, rather than the one for Boston. No, my ancestors originally sailed across to south-west Scotland from Belfast and settled there for a generation before moving to here in the 1860s.

So there you have it. Me and Jayne are going over to Dublin at the end of May. She wants the Grand Tour! And she'll probably get it too!

Slán go fóill