Saint Patrick’s festival in Ireland is the same carte-de-visite of the country, as beer “Guinness” and West Coast Cliffs.
But it was not always. Not old Irish people remember, how several decades ago, only several hundreds of people participated in the “Saint Patrick’s parade”, mostly school children. At that time, Irish immigrants to America celebrated this holiday more widely.
With the growth of welfare of Ireland and tourist flow to the country, there appeared a possibility to make this purely religious holiday more national. They even raised a prohibition to sell alcohol at this day, which had been in Ireland from ancient time. Saint Patrick, who brought Christianity to Ireland, became a new symbol of recovered and prosperous Ireland.
Almost every family in Dublin tries to take part “Saint Patrick’s parade”. Though parades take place in other cities and towns of Ireland, watching the parade in the capital is the special “style”, especially for youth. At this day, buses and long-distance trains are full of passengers, but fortunately, the country is not too large and such trips are not tiring.
As a result, in the central street of Dublin, where “Saint Patrick’s parade” takes place, it is almost impossible to find a good observation point already two hours before the beginning. Alternatively, you can bring with you a ladder (which is very widely used) or buy a ticket for special tribunes, which costs about 60 euro. By the way, this innovation with tickets started only this year and made me very happy personally. I was sorry for people who decided to visit the country only in order to watch the parade and did not have possibility to watch what they wished with comfort.
Believe me, there’s a lots to see. What price are musical groups, presented at this “Saint Patrick’s parade”. There were orchestras from Austria, Spain, Great Britain, the USA, Northern Ireland, as well as groups of Irish people originating from Africa and Pakistan, and amateur groups from many counties of Ireland. For a good reason, the theme of this “Saint Patrick’s Day” was “Unusual World”.
A propos, “Saint Patrick’s parade” is only one of parts of the festival of Saint Patrick’s Day celebration. It is very interesting to watch other events of the festival such as “Sky fest”, which was held in the city of Limerick this year.
You can come to the “Saint Patrick festival” a week prior to the parade beginning. So, you will be able to watch everything by easy stages.
