World comes to town for mother of all parties

Green lipstick, massive green eyelashes, green-tipped fingernails and green earrings and hats were all on display, writes KATHY…

Green lipstick, massive green eyelashes, green-tipped fingernails and green earrings and hats were all on display, writes KATHY SHERIDANin Dublin

THE PARADE was supposed to start at noon. By 12.40, the throng was growing restless. “Bo-o-ring,” moaned an American student in a “Today I’m Irish, Tomorrow I’m Hungover” T-shirt. It hardly helped that she was standing about three rows in from the barrier, so was forced up on her tippy-toes to see an undulating green sward of “Who’s the Paddy?” top hats.

Beside her, two robust-looking woodland creatures in tiny, tightly-belted green velvet dresses and leprechaun hats were wilting on their fierce heels.

Nearby, sporting cute green leprechaun antennae over her Muslim headscarf, Mumtaz Abubakar, a PhD chemistry student from Malaysia, said she heard “that if you don’t wear green, a snake will bite you”.

READ MORE

Sandra Pennycuick from Edinburgh and her three friends deserve special commendation for their deep commitment to the green:   green lipstick, massive green eyelashes, green-tipped fingernails, green earrings and hats, the entire look brought together by the shot glasses hanging round their necks.

Sandra opened her bag to reveal the vodka miniatures within.

“The drink prices are extortionate,” she said helplessly.

“Five euro for a Coca Cola? And they wonder why they’re losing tourists?”

Drink was a recurring theme – and that was just the non-natives. Earlier, a pub doorman near the route remarked it was all young Americans who were looking for alcohol before noon.

Four Swedish lads – three economics students and a chef – said the visit was “an excuse to drink”, though they were a long way from wild men.

Dressed in slim jackets, white shirts and polka dot green bow-ties (made in Korea, bought on eBay), with perfect English and manners, they were easily the coolest looking group in town.

Rebekah Noseworthy, a 23-year-old Canadian from Toronto, announced that she would not be drinking today.

“You don’t want to forget anything about today ... It’s surreal. We’re actually in Ireland on St Patrick’s Day. It’s something you only see in pictures, a once in a lifetime thing.”

Farther back, Rosa Sabrido, a 17-year-old from Madrid, studying at Moate Community School for a year, was painting her friends’ faces from a little tricolour paint box. So what were they expecting today?

“We hear there are many drunk people. And gingers. And people singing,” said Rosa.

None of them had heard of Roddy Doyle's Brilliant, on which the parade was to be based.

So The Irish Timesfelt a bounden duty to recycle, repeatedly, the story about recessionary Dublin whose funny bone was stolen by the vicious Black Dog (depression) and how hordes of brave children shouting "Brilliant!" had finally vanquished the beast and landed the funny bone back in Jim Larkin's outstretched arms.

A lovely, warm, uplifting story but with challenging nuances for foreigners. Black Dog? Funny bone? Jim Larkin?

Ah, you’ll see, we said, craning our necks outside Burger King as the parade finally announced itself at about 12.45.

A group of young Americans watched a white double-decker bus trundle past pasted with quotes from Brilliantand smiled in recognition. Well done, Irish Times. "But who're all those folks on top?" Haven't a clue. As the fairytale coach approached, Cornelia McCarthy from Borris was painstakingly preparing her children, explaining that this would contain a "great woman" in the form of boxer Katie Taylor.   Katie was in there indeed, we were assured later, but from our vantage point, she wasn't visible.   The children looked baffled. "Ah throw the Big Dog out there – or anything big that we can see," urged Cornelia out loud.

She was two rows in from the barrier, but anything less than shoulder high on the route was invisible. We looked enviously at Amaia, a girl from the Basque country who had bought herself an extra foot of height by standing on her Amstel beer sixpack. Several rockin’ bands, a slew of fine (real) horses and some colourful floats later, a plaintive little voice piped up : “But where’s the black dog, Mammy?” And suddenly here he was, a truly evil beast, huge, yellow eyes and woeful teeth in a ferocious, flea-bitten black head.

Everyone assumed it was him anyway. So they looked for an accompanying funny bone and children yelling “brilliant!”. “Did we miss it Mammy?” We contemplated Macnas’s sad-looking giant boy, some cool singing, shaggy dogs and deer, a giant toe-tapping boot topped by a tricorn and with some desperate looking “prisoners” at the base, a massive red bird with a black dog in its claws, a flying pink pig and – wait a minute a Black Dog . . ?   But it wasn’t nearly as big or scary as the first one.

In fact, the runaway success was the enormous, fluffy, three-headed pink puppy. It was Amy Rose Crushell’s favourite. And how did the nine-year-old from Castleknock think the Black Dog chimed with Roddy Doyle’s story?

She liked the way he floated off in the sky.

Must have missed that, we said, a bit crushed. It turned out to be a dog-shaped balloon she had seen floating away and – as all clever children do – she had used her imagination to finish the story.