I’m a pagan, so yeah, not my favorite holiday.
But I do like the sales next week on corned beef and brisket.
I think it was Paddy Moloney who told a story of the Chieftains playing a St. Patrick’s gig in the States one time and audience members saying something like “Why are you playing that bluegrass crap? Play real Irish music like ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’!”
I call that Friday.
Hate it. However, prior to going to university the idea of “celebrating” St. Patrick’s Day was unknown to me. I’d never heard of anybody doing it, and I come from the North West of England where hundreds of thousands of Irish flooded in to work in the pits and mills. Everybody here is of Irish descent, as the accents and food attest, but the idea of “celebrating” this day (especially ahead of St. George’s Day, our own patron saint, whose feast day is little observed) as if you were Irish or anything but English would have been ridiculous. It’s only the last ten years that I’ve really noticed the push to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the UK.
I know my girlfriend’s parents, who own an inn, in what can best be described as a hamlet in the middle of the (very Protestant) Scottish Borders, also hate the day. Guinness dump hundreds of those stupid giveaway tophats and Guinness poloshirts on them every year, and have no choice but to dump them at the local tip as they can’t get rid of them.
Most years, I completely forget about it. This year was no exception. I’m not wearing a stitch of green.
I look around my office and I see that nobody else is wearing any green either. Nothing unexpected about that: I work in software development and I’m one of the few native Americans here. The others are all from places such as Russia, Vietnam, Japan, etc., where they never even heard of St. Patrick’s day.
And that’s just fine with me.
I don’t get the hate…
For me it’s just a fun excuse to go out for a few good drinks (Guinness, Bushmills) with friends, enjoy a bit of shepherds pie, crank up some of my favorite Van Morrison, and then later dress up as a sexy leprechaun and beat an English hooker to death with a tire iron.
What’s not to love???
(seriously though, I was just joking around above—I would NEVER actually eat shepherds pie)
I would like to clarify my position. I am all for holidays focused on getting hammered with friends. I am just not going out to the bars on those holidays.
Yeah I think the push in England is largely a Diageo led thing.
The main thing I hate about it is the term “St. Patty’s Day” for some reason it really grinds my gears. St. Paddy’s Day being oh so different and better. 
I live in Chicago. The fountains and river look like puke today. I’m not being metaphorical. They look like the bodily emissions of the Incredible Hulk.
They also have signs up celebrating the city of the “Chi-rish” :rolleyes: Someone paid for that, with my tax money.
Bah, humbug.
[I know I’m responding to my own message.]
I just came back from the office complex cafeteria. While I was there, I did a quick estimate based on what I saw there. Maybe one out of twenty people was wearing any green.
I love the Silicon Valley!
I demand equal time for those of German descent!
I want a day where everybody drinks beer and eats schnitzel and invades and annexes their neighbors’ backyards!
If there are leiderhosen involved, put me down for the “Anyone else hate St. Boniface’s Day?” thread, plz.
I have no feeling either way about St. Patrick’s Day.
However, I hate other people’s reaction to my indifference.
“Why aren’t you wearing green?!!”
“Because I’m not Irish.”
“Neither am I! It’s still fun!”
“That’s fine, but it just doesn’t interest me.”
“Why are you being such a spoilsport?!!”
“How am I being a spoilsport? I didn’t say you couldn’t have fun/wear green/get drunk/whatever.”
“But it’s fun!”
“That’s nice. Have fun.”
“But you’re not wearing green!”
God forbid somebody actually try to pinch me.
Over here in Irish Ireland shit like that doesn’t happen. 
I’m part Irish, but have always found the day to be tedious, for all of the reasons mentioned. As for pinching: if somebody wants that to be their last act on the planet, I say go for it.
Oktoberfest is more than equal time.
I can do without the crowds of loud drunk college/20-year-old males and their skanky girlfriends all wearing green massing on the subway platforms and cars. Other than that, it’s a big meh to me. Just another day.
You have the entire month of Oktoberfest.
I’m of Protestant Irish heritage (and Scots and English and for all I know, Welsh).
I like to wear orange on this day, just to be kinda douchey*. Thing is, it’s a Catholic holiday. I’m not Catholic. Plus, living near Chicago (which at one point had more [and for all I know may still have] Irish people in it than Dublin), so the river is green, there are signs all over about Ch-Irish (that’s a new bastardization this year-let’s hope it dies), shileleighs or however you spell that damned word, and shamrocks and leprechauns everywhere. Ick. I have a deeply ingrained dislike of sloppy drunks, no matter what color their beer is.
Also, re the IRA: I think there are many Americans who don’t (or didn’t) think through just what the IRA was (is?) doing. Which is not to say the Brits were innocent by any means, but IMS, quite a bit of money funding the IRA came from the USA. A sad statement.
*I was born on William of Orange day, but I don’t wear orange on my Bday.
What gets me is when I show up wearing an Irish wool sweater and carrying a shilleleigh, and people ask me why I’m not wearing green. There’s more to a culture than a color, people!
I didn’t wear green today and it worked out for me. My daughter pinched me for my unfestive garb, but that’s okay I guess.
I did learn today that things got weird at my daughter’s elementary school, with multiple adult interventions between green people ganging up on and repeatedly pinching the ungreen people.
Anyway, I’m with the anti-Saint Pat’s crowd. But then, I don’t like any holidays at all, except perhaps Halloween, but I spend even that one mostly alone.
How does one say humbug in Irish?