...including me!
No, really, there's no Irish in my gene pool. Spending four years at Notre Dame, though, means I'm pretty close to 100% (Fighting) Irish, and I believe in St. Patrick's Day the way romantics believe in Valentine's Day and trees believe in Arbor Day. It's such a fun holiday...and I fortunately look decent in green!
Kidding aside, I've had some pretty spectacular St. Patrick's Days past and I thought it'd be fun to revisit them...
In 2008 I was a tiny bébé freshman at Notre Dame and had no idea what the night would entail. It entailed this, fyi:
My oh my. We had fun.
In 2009, the night was so debauched there was no photo evidence. I may or may not have almost gotten ResLifed (Notre Dame's super scary [pause not] disciplinary board).
In 2010, I celebrated in the United Kingdom! We debated going to Dublin for awhile, but as St. Patrick's Day is a religious holiday in Ireland, and as we were twenty-one year olds who just wanted to rage...we didn't. The London Program wasn't called the Brogram for no reason....
In 2011, I celebrated with my mom and Mrs. Reuvers while home...
And with Kaitlin when back at Notre Dame! C'mon. This holiday is SO important that if Spring Break falls over St. Patrick's Day, students throw Fake Patrick's Day and go all. out.
Please note the green beer. I recall being ridiculously excited that it did THIS to my tongue:
Please also note how absurdly excited I am about my glow-in-the-dark green shamrock badge, Miller Lite logo and all. Wow, kids, this is college.
My freshman year of life gifted us with a rare seventy-degree day in March, AND St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday. This meant we went wild: I day-drank with Andrew all day, met up with some of my favorite EY'ers around dinner...
One of my favorite memories from this year is absolutely chowing through a chicken pot pie with Hannah at O'Donovan's, standing at and eating off a random window ledge because the bar was so packed.
Of course, then we met up with Claire and Company, because what night isn't more fabulous when you meet up with Claire?
Weirdly, that's the last year I have photographs from. This year, I stayed/am staying low-key: Claire and I and a fun crew of others went out for a bit downtown (it was GORGEOUS again this year!) on Saturday, and tomorrow I'll watch the parade in St. Paul and leave work really early. I might grab a pint somewhere, but I also might just reminisce on how awesome it is to be Irish by love and not by blood.
For further reference, here's a quick guide to identifying a (Fighting) Irish girl or guy in your area:
We do the Leprechaun pose any time anything reminds us of Notre Dame.
We like things that are shaped like shamrocks. Especially if they're edible.
We're always hunting leprechauns. They tend to be pretty easy to find on Notre Dame football gamedays.
Related: We really, really, really like Irish football.
We do things like go to Ireland for it, we like it so much. (The Notre Dame-Navy game, played in Dublin in 2012, was the largest recorded exodus of Americans to a foreign country at once for one specific reason other than the World Wars. Just a fun fact!)
Oh...and most importantly...we drink a toast to the Irish at every given opportunity.
Slainte, friends! Happy St. Patrick's Day!