Guinness is apparently trying to get the United States to make March 17 a holiday. If you don’t know already, that’s the feast day of St. Patrick. The day bears nothing special to most Americans. It’s not even a Catholic holiday (the only religion that even believes this Patrick guy is something special). I know a bunch of Irish-Americans will write comments or email me or something telling me that I’m ridiculous that it’s a very important holiday, and maybe it is… in Ireland (do we expect other countries to recognize President’s Day, Columbus Day, MLK Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day, etc.?). Guinness just wants to do this as a marketing plow, to sell more of their bland Guinness Draught on nitro-tap or in nitro-cans and bottles. They want this day to turn into a big drunk fest.
St. Patrick’s Day should absolutely not be a national holiday. There is no reason for it. I am not anti-Irish, in fact, if anything I’d be saying that St. Joseph’s Day should be a national holiday for Italian-Americans, but I’m not rooting for that either. If St. Patrick’s Day were to become a national holiday, we would have to make every special day for every culture a national holiday. Pretty soon we’d end up with 3 months of work and every other day would be a holiday. It’s pointless.
If you want to take a vacation day on St. Patrick’s Day because you grew up with a very serious Irish heritage and you’re going to celebrate the life of this Patrick guy, go for it. But simply being Irish does not give you special permission to have the day off so you can eat corned beef and cabbage (which isn’t Irish), drink green beer (again, not Irish), or get drunk (just like being Italian doesn’t give you a special permission to have St. Joseph’s Day off to eat pastries). The only days you should be granted are special religious holidays, such as the Jewish high holidays, which generally grant people days off, the important Christian holy days (such as Good Friday), and other religious holidays (Islam being the other big one).
If Guiness gets their way, it will just be another St. Valentine’s Day (bet you didn’t know Feb. 14 is actually a feast day for a saint, and it’s not even a national holiday, last I checked, I had to work that day), but instead of Hallmark cards, chocolate, and roses, it’ll be beer (and corned beef and cabbage).
And no… everyone is not Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Flame away…
Actually, St. Patrick’s Day is not a big deal in Ireland. It’s strictly an American thing (I’m guessing not so much in Providence, though).
I can tell you it is a pretty big deal in Chicago – there’s even two parades here! There’s the city parade downtown and the “South Side Irish” parade. (In case you didn’t know, there’s a very large Irish population in Chicago.) I’m guessing it’s a big deal in Boston, too.
I hadn’t heard of this before, and honestly I’m a little disappointed in Guinness, as this smacks of being nothing more than a marketing scheme.
Yeah, I know there’s a ton of big St. Patrick’s Day events all over the country. Boston has a big one, NYC has a big one (lots of controversy here over the gays marching in it, or that might be Boston, I don’t remember), Providence has one. The holiday is big at Providence College (where I work). My student employees like to skip that day, so I give them all a hard time and give out demerits when they don’t have someone to cover them. Getting drunk because you’re Irish is not an excuse to miss work in my opinion.
Guinness is barely even Irish. I’ve heard that the Irish (the ones in Ireland) don’t even drink it that much.
Yeah, Guinness may be from Ireland (originally, anyways – they have other breweries now), but it’s more popular in other countries – particularly England. A friend of mine lived in Ireland for a year, and he said they pretty much drink Miller and Bud. Go figure.
On the subject, when I was in France, I had Guinness Special Export Stout (bottled) – quite a bit stronger than the Extra Stout they sell here!
I’ve heard really good things about the Guinness Foreign Export Stout (not something you can get here). They also did something with some Belgian brewery that was supposed to be amazing.
I do like their regular Extra Stout that you can get here though. It’s much better than the Guinness Draught (whether on tap, in cans, or in bottles).