St. Patrick's Day

Hello all,


Last night John and I went to the Boston for one pint to celebrate his return from Bristol. I completely forgot that it was St. Patrick's weekend, we do live in the Irish section of London, and the Boston IS an Irish pub. OH, such a big mistake. We went in and there was a traditional band setting up, Irish people everywhere, and Guinness . . . ahhhhh Guinness!

So we sat down at a large table, just the two of us, and John went to get us drinks. All of a sudden, four full blooded Irishmen come sit at our table and I had to inform them not to take my boyfriend's chair. It threw me for a minute but then I remembered that in Ireland, people shared tables all the time.

John brought our drinks back and the band began to play. Amazingly, every song they played the whole pub knew, and sang along as loud as they could. People were dancing jigs, pounding the tables, stomping the floor . . . much to John's worry, he being a staunch Englishman and all. I mentioned to one of the Irishmen that I wanted to hear 'Black Velvet Band' a traditional Irish song. They shouted it out for me, all four of them as loud as they could, to the band and they played it. Soon John and I discovered that their names were Henry, Michael, Paul, and Gary. Not much longer after that their friends came over, all was forgiven where John being English was concerned, and we had us a nice party. Hey . . . it is St. Patrick's Day!

It was my round next and as I was waiting for my drinks at the bar I turned and the lead singer was right behind me. I introduced myself, when asked about my heritage said American with some Irish, and requested that he play 'The Wild Rover', the song I taught my American students to sing for their Language Arts Heritage Unit. He then went up, said "This is for a lovely Irish American in the audience." and played my request. Everyone in the bar was singing along, including myself.

I got to sit there, surrounded by Irish men and women, listening to Irish music, pounding tables, stomping floors, and even dancing a jig with a few Irish women once. It was a blast.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!