Paddy's Weekend

Since St Patrick's Day was on a Friday, there's no way around it: it had to last the whole weekend.
Zillions of years ago St Patrick brought Christianity to the Irish and chased all the snakes out of the country at the same time. (Since he was there anyway....) And he did such a good job that there still are no snakes that choose Ireland as their favourite habitat. Fair play to Paddy so.

Anyway, St Patrick is the national Saint and the 17th of March is the National holiday. People dress up in green, pin some shamrocks on their coat and go out and about for the day.

Kirstyanne, Sofia, Eros and me set out to watch the parade. By the time it was half way through we had frozen our toes off and decided to go for coffee in a nearby hotel and watch the rest of it on tv.

After the parade we went to Croke Park stadium to watch the All-Ireland Club finals. Two matches: Hurling and Gaelic Football. Although I don't know the rules of either exactly, Hurling can best be described as a sort of rough 3D fieldhockey (helmets can be worn and you may lift the hurler (stick) above your hip, in fact you have to swing it above your head ever so often) and Gaelic Football is a mixture of Football, Handball and Rugby. People like their contact sports over here.... But before I get into trouble, they are both very skillful games.
The Hurling final:

After that first match, the people from the lower tiers all ran onto the pitch to congratulate their team.

Voice over the speakers: We kindly ask all patrons to remain in their seats during the ceremony and not make their way into the field.

Kirstyanne: I don't think it's working
Mariekschen: you don't say...
Voice over the speakers: We kindly ask all patrons to return to their seats as soon as possible after the ceremony. We have a Gaelic Football match to play after this.

After we'd frozen our toes off again, Kirstyanne and I walked back to town and paid a visit to some pubs and a chipper on the way. That evening we convinced people that I was Scottish and Kirstyanne (who is actually Scottish) had won the Female Highland games. Good times good times.

Next year: parade on tv and more socks during the Club finals...

The last three six nations games were played on saturday. People had to go to the pub for 'a cure' anyway, so it was nice and full of people everywhere during the matches. Ireland beat England and considering that it was in England too, made the win even sweeter. Although France won the tournament, Ireland walked away with the Triple Crown trophy. So the whole city was celebrating this great victory that day after Paddy's day and the Rugby team were the new national heroes.