I was hunting down folk who sing with a Northern Irish accent for #ThePlaylist and was disappointed to find a lot of singers from here seem to suppress or downplay their accent. So, for St Patrick’s Day, here’s Foy Vance in the Bushmills Distillery with some very County Down vowels.
@onorio It’s a national holiday in both the North and the South and there’s big parades in Belfast and Dublin and smaller ones in other towns. Catholics might go to a special mass. Some people go out on the piss, some don’t: the bars and pubs are usually pretty bunged, and the student residential area by QUB goes absolutely mental. I’ve not been out for St Paddy’s since I was in my early twenties myself, too much of a hassle.
I mean, you wouldn’t catch us at some nonsense like dying the river or the beer green, but it’s a decently big deal here. Tourists definitely power a lot of it but locals might celebrate as well.
@onorio Here’s an example of St Patrick’s Day in 2010 at the student area by QUB, the Holylands, featuring a street-long Rock The Boat. Every year the university begs the students to NOT get up to the usual shenanigans and every year they are ignored. I used to live down there before I was ever a student and you couldn’t chuck a beer tin without hitting a lad in a GAA top even outside of St Paddy’s.
@astronomerritt Ah! Gotcha! Sounds like many of the celebrations after a sports championship over here--mostly peaceful and harmless but some people take it as an excuse to destroy stuff and cause mayhem. And, yep, most adults I know wouldn't be cause dead around any of it.
Anyway, thanks for setting me straight on that Steph!
Steph (crisis version)
OldDutchCap