It is hard to believe that tomorrow afternoon when parades wind their way through the streets and boreens of our cities and towns, that it will have been three years since we were last able to enjoy such a vista.
A three year hiatus for anything is a serious halt, but for something that is built on volunteerism and community effort, it would be forgiven for having lost its way in the morass of nothingness that passed as existence for the past two years.
To be fair, as soon as those first parades were cancelled in 2020, our community spirit sparked into action with local organisations rebranding themselves as guardians of the vulnerable. Shopping for the elderly, making sure that in the first major emergency many them had experienced in their lives, nobody was left behind in the battle for survival and need.
With each of these efforts came a great sense of local pride and indeed national pride, and it is that spirit that I am glad to see has shone through in the past few months as more and more parades were organised, to bring colour and happiness to the cities and towns and villages again.
Alas, at the time that the planning for these went into overdrive, we were not to know that by the time those plans come to fruition, that the world would be a sadder place; that we would be horrified by the evilness coming across our TV screens every night, courtesy of Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine.
That, having stumbled from one international crisis to another, we are traumatised; our collective bar for shock having been lowered considerably.
And so we are called into action again. It would be the easiest thing to abandon our parades in the face of such awfulness, but tomorrow, we owe it to ourselves and to the spirit of the Ukrainian people who will soon be among us in great numbers, to honour our national holiday; to show the type of welcoming community that we must become in order to shelter the refugees from the horrors they have left behind.
Remember tomorrow too, that if you are celebrating our national holiday, try not to ruin it for others through the abuse of alcohol. Make sure that the younger generation, some of whom are experiencing their first real memories of St Patrick’s Day, do not have their perception of the holiday associated with the abuse of alcohol as it has been for so many others.
Have a great St Patrick’s Day and weekend; be safe and be welcoming, and enjoy. You all deserve it.
