I’ve been lucky enough to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in lots of places.  Dublin had a huge party and parade, complete with Viking ships and a reenactment of the Battle of Clontarf. I’ve celebrated in New York and it was more or less a drunken mess.  There is a parade in Copenhagen and Belgrade celebrates with a concert by The Orthodox Celts by singing rebel songs.  In Bratislava, the big party was at The Dubliner Irish Pub.

Auckland bills itself as the biggest St. Patrick’s Day Festival in the Southern Hemisphere.  Unfortunately, the festivities, including parade and games, were held on the weekend, March 14 and 15 and we were not in Auckland on the weekend.  But I figured there would be something on the day itself, and of course there was in each Irish Pub downtown.  And where else would the biggest party but…

We attended two pubs. I had my dram of Jam3son, listened to live Irish music, and both bars had step dancing.

Back on the ship the party continued.  There was corned beef and cabbage for dinner and the production show “Celtic Spirits on the main stage.  We watched the show twice.

Following that was a party in the ocean band that was only notionally Irish.  The singer sang Brown Eyed Girl twice, Moondance once and Danny Boy.  More Uptown Funk than down home fiddling and more Abba and the Beatles than U2 or the Pogues.  But the decorations were green with little Irish flags.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!