What’s “Hubris” in Gaelic?
St. Patrick’s Day is the closest my conservative Irish-Catholic neighborhood in New York City gets to resembling Bourbon Street. We hold what can charitably be described as a parade—the old ladies of the Golden Age Society, the kids from the local elementary school, and the volunteer firetruck. The parade is actually held on the first weekend of March, and I decided to go home one year in college to visit a few friends on spring break. Wandering the streets of the neighborhood in the morning, I came across ninth and tenth graders tasting beer for the first time. I laughed as they grimaced through the first few gulps. My friends and I began drinking around 10:30 a.m., and after a few beers we were ready to “go to the parade.” By noon I was six beers in and showing no signs of slowing down. The last thing I remember from that day is downing Irish car bombs with my friend and her mom at six in the evening. I woke up the next morning to see the DVD menu for Atonement playing on a loop on my computer screen and a half-eaten hero resting on my chest.
—Dan Newman (SFS ‘10)
San Pasquale
Over my senior spring break in high school, my Humanities class went on a two-week guided tour of Italy. We took full advantage of the experience—the culture, the priceless artwork, and the absence of a legal drinking age.
St. Patrick’s day did not seem to be a huge deal in Florence, but a group of us doggedly raced from piazza to piazza in search of some English-speaking, green-beer-brewing nightlife. Once inside the only Irish pub for miles, we waited at the bar for our share of ale mixed with a blue liquor with, I kid you not, a large skull emblazoned on the label.
“Well aren’t ye a sight fer sore eyes,” a voice straight out of Once called to me across the bar.
Had this pickup come from anyone else, I most likely would have smiled politely and taken my mug of green beer elsewhere. However, the leprechaunesque old Irish man standing at the bar wasn’t the type to alert my stranger-danger warning. I thought it would be rude to snub him, especially on his country’s patron saint’s day.
As it was, I accepted an evening’s worth of free beer from the old Paddy and ended up dancing a pseudo-jig all night to the Chieftains. I wasn’t even late to our visit to the Uffizi the next morning—there’s the luck of the Irish for you.
—Emma Forster (COL ‘13)
Sip’N’Slide
The sleeves of my green New York Knicks t-shirt were ripped off, my bathing suit was soaking wet, and my legs were covered in foam as I stood in the middle of a Village B apartment last St. Patrick’s Day.
It was hard to believe that a slip-n-slide could fit inside such a tiny Georgetown apartment, but on a day where green beer flows like water from a fountain, nothing is inconceivable.
The slippery mat started at one end of the apartment and went straight down the hallway, only to be stopped by a collection of pillows that padded the inevitable crash into the wall.
I looked down the hallway, bent down, and jumped. For a short three seconds, soap splattered in my eyes, water soaked my clothes, and I flew down the narrow hallway, crashing into the wall.
The room exploded in cheers. I tiptoed around the slip-n-slide and walked across the apartment to the inflatable kiddy pool to rinse off. Someone handed me another frothy green beverage as I kicked back, relaxed, and enjoyed the start of Georgetown spring, the best time of the year.
—Tom Bosco (MSB ‘12)
