St-Patrick’s Day Weekend is the sort of event best written about days later, when the alcoholic tide recedes just enough to allow one to sort through the detritus of memories left behind. Rummaging around in your vague recollections, perhaps you can find radiant smiles, melodies from bad Irish jigs, glimpses of green and a bunch of Guinness banners soaked in various alcoholic beverages. You might also remember a parade with wonderfully gaudy floats, Shriners in go-carts and a raucous crowd reveling in the opportunity to get blind drunk in public on a Sunday afternoon. What you might not remember so well, however, is how you sustained the inevitable injury you woke up with on Monday morning.
The infamous St-Patrick’s Day parade in Montreal is held on the day of the Lord, perhaps because it is the only day of the week Montrealers still feel they might need an excuse to party. It is also on the cusp of spring, when the fair people of this city awake from their Siberian slumber to rediscover how attractive so many of their fellow citizens are. Of course, in these parts, “on the cusp of spring” means just below freezing and some snow flurries for good measure, but that can also be counted as tradition. Having been away from my hometown for a number of the last few years, I’ve been working on rediscovering Montreal as I plot and ponder my next (likely career) move; and on March 19, 2006, that quest to rediscover my roots involved drinking no small amount of beer in honour of my ancestral lands…or maybe it was to celebrate my name day or, uhmm, perhaps it was a rite of spring…oh, honestly, who am I kidding? On St-Patrick’s Weekend, no excuse to party is needed.
We’ve all heard the cliché that on St-Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish (although personally, I still felt Canadian as per usual despite my three quarters Irish and one quarter Slovak heritage). This might be true, but in Montreal it also seems that for this occasion everyone is once again a rambunctious student. For those who have long left the hallowed halls of academia behind for a more mundane (and profitable) existence, it’s a cherished opportunity to get shitfaced in broad daylight, piss in alleyways and just generally not remember much of what was said or done. In other words, it’s a rare chance for a North American city to resemble its European and Asian counterparts for a day. For myself, the guilty thrill of drinking in public without being fined is somewhat lessened after spending time in London, where boozing on public transportation has been elevated to an art form (I hear the Japanese are particularly good at this as well). Similarly, the pleasure of heavy drinking for no particular reason is tempered by my memories of China, where a businessman stumbling out of a restaurant at 2pm on a Tuesday and pissing on someone’s car- and then falling over - is considered a display of good business acumen.
But have no doubt, Montreal sure puts on a great show. It has the energy, it has the vibe, it has the will to let loose- and, thankfully, it has the good fortune of not being in Ontario (shudder).The spirit of St-Patrick’s Day fuels the city’s barely repressed celebration of hedonistic abandon; something about the day is a catalyst for Montreal to showcase its partying street cred. Oh, did I say ’something’? Let me rephrase that: I meant copious amounts of alcohol. We may not be Irish, but we certainly make up for it. It’s the one time of the year you’ll see club-style lineups outside grungy pubs, the city’s hipsters all clamouring to get inside and spill litres of green beer on themselves. It’s that special occasion when the collective memory of the city doesn’t make it too far past 6pm. On this weekend in March, sloppy is the new urban cool.
Here’s to you Montreal, ya drunk bastard. Get up on that table with that pitcher and dance the afternoon away.
