Yes Virginia, there is a St. Patrick's Day in Ireland

With thanks and apologies to the New York Sun:

“He It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus St. Patrick's Day! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias leprechauns. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.”

As long as we are mixing references, here is the The Fun, The Bad and the Tardy from David Bell, who I assume is an actual Irelander / Irishian / Slainte-ite:

• green beer
• colcannon (mashed spuds with kale and a heap of butter
• tulips (really, he talks about tulips)
• Spotifyrish
• costumes (I guess in Ireland that would be an issue but I can’t get anyone to wear a costume for Halloween)
• patriotism - either way 
• LOUD Irish music (including a banjo)
• being tardy.

Me, I’ll be enjoying the dying of the Chicago River and remembering my Mom’s Irish soda bread.