mar04stpat

Saint Patrick's Day Festivities
by Ciaran MacCormiac

First, a few facts about St. Patrick's Day:

Saint Patrick was Welsh and was brought to Ireland as a slave in the 5th century.

He is said to have rid Ireland of snakes. This legend probably comes from the Biblical tradition of symbolising evil with snakes (which juxtaposes nicely with the healing serpents used on a caduceus - the symbol of medicine). As one comedian put it, St. Patrick did such a thorough job that he managed to completely rid Ireland of all fossilised remains of snakes too!

New York's St. Patrick's Day parade is the oldest and probably the biggest in the world, but surprisingly enough it was organised by Irish members of the British forces.

St. Patrick used existing pagan beliefs to convert the Celts to Christianity. By superimposing the sun (which at that time was a widely revered god) on the existing Christian cross, the Celtic Cross was born.

The only other country to have St. Patrick's Day as a national holiday is the British territory of Montserrat in the Caribbean. It was here in the 1650s that Ireland's second-favourite Brit, Oliver Cromwell, sent the Irish people he didn't kill to work alongside the African slaves on the plantations. Their national flag must be the only emblem in the world where you can find Ireland represented (by a lady in green with a Celtic harp and cross) right next to the Union Jack. In fact, when you enter Montserrat you even get a shamrock stamped in your passport!

St. Patrick's Day means different things to different people. Depending on who you talk to from countries with large Irish communities such as Britain, America, Canada and Australia, the day is either an assertion of a distinct cultural identity, or a kitschy indulgence in nostalgia directed by big drinks companies.

The disparity in motivations for celebrating the day can best be seen on the "auld sod" itself. In Northern Ireland, the day is the Catholic half of the population's chance to demonstrate their desire to dissociate themselves from Britain. As such, the parades there have a strong emphasis on Irish dance, music, literature and sport. In Dublin the parades are less fiercely "Irish" and are treated more as a carnival for everyone.

Despite the commonly held image of the festival as one of drunken debauchery, pubs were closed by law on March 17th in observance of Lent until the 70s. Only in recent years have the drinks companies and tourism industry been allowed to use the day to aggressively plug their products. St. Patrick's Day in Dublin is now a three-day festival. This is to encourage tourists who might have been thinking of enduring the miserable climes of Montserrat to take advantage of Ireland's fine March weather instead.

Here in Kanagawa . . .

Saturday the 6th of March marked a green-letter day for Yokohama as the first-ever St. Patrick's Day parade was held on the Motomachi Shopping Street. The Irish Network Japan were asked by the local shop-owners association to organise the event to make people aware of the new Minato-Mirai subway line which runs from Shibuya to Motomachi-Chukagai.

There are a few Irish people living in the Yokohama area these days, but down through the years a few non-NOVA Irish have left their mark on the historic port. Lafcadio Hearn (aka Koizumi Yakumo) is credited with being the first writer to reveal the mysteries of Japan to the Western world. And if you take a look at the plaque in the foreigner's cemetery, you will notice that there were some Irish sailors aboard the Black Ships (with presumably more authentic accents than the one Billy Connolly sported in The Last Samurai!) There was even an Irish Freemasonry Lodge established here as early as 1862.

Many headaches cropped up during the organising of the Motomachi parade, such as obtaining permission to divert the traffic for the two-hour duration, and having to re-route the whole procession to bypass the house of a local yakuza pillar of the community. However the weather was on our side, and the whole day passed off without a hitch (but plenty of hiccups.)

For me, the highlight of the day was when St. Patrick, bedecked in a green cloak and bishop's mitre, got a call on his keitai just before the parade started and answered with "Hello, St. Patrick's pest removal!"

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