March 17th means St Patrick’s Day. Bostonians wear green clothes and walk in the streets drinking beer to celebrate their Irish roots – Boston has a big Irish catholic community, and generally in the US people are proud of their origins and have a sense of belonging to a community – which is quite different from France. Despite the cold, there was a lot of people in the streets. I biked to South Boston, the neighborhood of the city where most of the Irish community is living.
Saint Patrick played a key role in founding Christianism in Irland, where is the patron saint. But did you know that he’s also the patron saint of Boston. That’s probably why Bostonians like to celebrate him on his day. Or beer.
Other cities in the country celebrate this day as well, like in New York and Chicago (where the river is colored in green), but well Boston has the 2nd biggest parade and tons of people go to South Boston to enjoy the party. If my memory is good, I think that we see the parade in Clint Eastwood movie, Mystic River, cinema fans will tell me if I’m wrong.
For those of you that beer and parades scare, you can enjoy St Patrick Day’s running a 5 km. Happy healthy St Patrick’s Day !
Photo by Steven Senne/AP sur wbur.org
Photo by Angela Rowlings sur le Boston Herald
For the next St Patrick’s Day:
- the map with the parade path
- the best spots
This afternoon of biking in South Boston was a also a good occasion to discover this neighborhood that we didn’t know at all. We have to go back to feel how it is over there!
Did you celebrate St Patrick’s Day. If so, where?!
-Manu
