LA fheile Phadraig. The very words send a shiver down Drapier's spine.
The rest of you can go and cheer for Eire Og at Croke Park, see Newbridge beat Blackrock at Lansdowne Road or try to get back some of your lost Cheltenham money at Leopardstown, but Drapier will spend the day at three local parades, shivering on the back of a windswept lorry as a few ill-dressed floats roll by in what passes for a parade.
Sometimes Drapier gets carried away with the glamour, the breathless excitement of it all.
It was a strange sort of a week in the House. The absence of John Bruton and Bertie Ahern gave the chamber a bereft look, not that the mice did much playing while the cats were away. There were, however, a few surprises in an otherwise ragged week.
The first surprise of the week was Fianna Fail's decision to move the by-election writ. There had been a sort of understanding between the parties that the writs would wait until after Easter and most parties had been operating to this schedule.
Then on Monday, almost out of the blue, Dermot Ahern announced Fianna Fail's decision to go ahead.
The big question was why. What did Bertie Ahern know that the rest of us did not? The assumption was that the polls showed Fianna Fail in an advantageous position, and, after five straight by-election defeats, now was the best time to strike.
Fianna Fail certainly needs an electoral boost; the question is whether the gamble will pay off. For Bertie's sake it had better.
According to what Drapier hears the early polls in Dublin West show Brian Og Lenihan well ahead of the field, and this lead will be boosted by high recognition and by the sympathy vote. The party organisation in Dublin West is somewhat patchy, but then so is everybody else's at this stage.
Drapier is astonished at the decline of traditional organisation and organisational skills in all parties over the past decade. The great political machines of the past are now little more than memories, but more than that there is increasing voter resistance to the old-style campaigns and old-style, campaigning.
This is particularly true in bye-elections, especially in urban areas with their large volatile vote. Increasingly, politicians are learning the hard way that what the volatile voter giveth with one hand can be just as easily taken away with the other.
In this context Brian Lenihan has to watch out. Fianna Fail is not good at picking up transfers, as Dick Roche and Beverley Flynn found to their cost. There is no evidence that things will be much better in Dublin West, even though Fianna Fail is now in opposition - so Brian will need to be well-clear of the field on the first count.
AT this stage, Drapier makes him firm favourite, not so much because of Fianna Fail's strength but because of the weakness of the opposition. The only real threat will come from Fine Gael's Tom Morrissey or from Joe Higgins.
Fine Gael has only three weeks to do a Liam Skelly on Morrissey - and that involves getting him known, mobilising the traditional party vote and picking up transfers from all other groups.
It is a tall order in three weeks and even taller if the weather stays as miserable as it is. But if it can be done, Jim Mitchell is the man to do it.
Joe Higgins is the wild card. Drapier does not underestimate Joe but feels there are too many areas where his appeal is limited, making it difficult for him to pick up enough votes to overtake Lenihan.
However, if he and the Greens can work together (a big if) then a surprise could be on the cards.
As for Labour, they are traditionally bad by-election performers, and Drapier sees nothing to change that pattern this time round. From their point of view it will be a question of damping down expectations and limiting the damage. Joan Burton's huge vote of 1992 will not be a factor this time.
For the PDs the by-election is important. Remember this was once a PD seat when Pat O'Malley won it in 1987 and places like Castleknock and Lucan should be natural PD territory.
But the PDs have a dismal by-election record in this Dail, too - lost deposits in Cork, a poor show in Dublin South West and no candidate at all in Wicklow. There will be a candidate this time and the only people more interested in the PDs' performance than Mary Harney will be the Fianna Fail front bench.
There is a growing view in Fianna Fail that the PDs will not have the numbers after the next election to farm a Fianna Fail/PD government, and some of Fianna Fail's sharpest have already begun to write off this possibility.
In the words of one of their MEPs, they are looking at the apertura a sinistra. For those less familiar, that is the "opening to the left" and "left" in this case means Labour and not DL.
So the stakes will be high in Dublin West; high for Bertie Ahern who needs a victory and high for, Mary Harney if her hope for coalition is to materialise. Drapier will look at Donegal later, but for now his money is on Harry Blaney.
BACK at Leinster House the other surprise was that the Eithne Fitzgerald saga took a slightly more serious turn. The general view in here is that Eithne handled it badly from the start.
First of all she failed to grasp that the point at issue was not the use of notepaper, but the propriety of seeming to invite people to discuss and maybe influence sensitive legislation before it was published.
Now, in fairness, Drapier knows there was never any question of this happening; the Finance Bill is already cast in stone and with the draughtsman and, in any event, Ruairi Quinn would not for one moment countenance such behaviour, nor in fairness would Eithne ask him to.
But for someone who steered the ethics legislation through and, it has to be said, lectured the rest of us about the importance of "perception" this was a major own goal.
Much worse was the way she handled the House. The House can be rough, but it can also be understanding. Eithne gave it no choice. Her brusque, almost petulant, apology appalled most people and made her original situation very much worse.
Will she go? Drapier thinks not. But neither should Phil Hogan or Hugh Coveney have had to go. If a lesson has been learned then let's all put it down to experience. Drapier sees little evidence, however, that any great lesson has been learned. And if that is the cast this episode is still far from over.