Top Ten St Patrick’s Day Essentials

The 17th March is St Patricks Day time to celebrate being Irish! If you don’t have any Irish ancestry that doesn’t matter, most of us can cobble together a connection to the Emerald Isle no matter how vague; my sister lived there for six months, I like Guinness and like House of Pain, practically makes me a leprechaun!

Despite it being associated with a boozathon supplemented with green beer and disgusting green food, in Ireland surprisingly pubs actually close. Over 94 million people plan to wear green on St Pats Day, over 20 times the population of Ireland. So here’s The Quick Ten to St Patrick’s Day:

1. Guinness (stout)

   Global consumption of Guinness alone more than doubles to a staggering 13 million pints on St Patrick’s Day, (one of them at least with my name on it). Don’t like stout? Perhaps a nifty Guinness Gaelic Label T-shirt

2. Irish stew

   Recipe

3. Whiskey

   Irish whiskey is not only spelt differently from Scottish whisky but is usually softer because it’s triple distilled to remove more impurities. So hopefully less likely to give you a hangover like a banshee!

4. Leprechauns

   Cheeky mischievious ginger wee sprites dressed in green, with a funny hat and dandy shoes. If you see one, don’t trust them – it probably means you’ve had too much Guinness!

5. Something green to wear

   Legend has it that wearing green renders you invisible to leprechauns, when a leprechaun sees you they pinch you and no one ones to be pinched by a ginger midget, with elf ears and a funny hat. An it doesn’t get better than a Celtic Football Shirt

6. An Irish pub

   Every city in the world has at least one to choose from. The Irish Pub

7. A funny hat

   St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Hat

8. Hot Irish girls

   They’re easy on the eye (especially the red or raven haired lasses) have a sexy accent, a potty mouth and they’ll probably drink you under the table.

9. A fiddle

   Call it ‘diddy diddy music’ but it’ll get you dancing and is a favourite of The Pogues and the The Corrs

10. Shamrocks

    The Shamrock is Ireland’s emblem and brings the wearer luck. It’s estimated by some clever people with calculators that there is one four leafed clover for every 10,000 three leafed clovers.

No St Patrick’s Day would be complete without a few humorous quotes, toasts and limericks: As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never point in the wrong direction.

Erin go bragh!