Tomorrow, March 17 is an important day for our Irish friends as it’s St Patrick’s Day aka, more commonly as, St Paddy’s Day. St Patrick is the patron saint (Schutzpatron) of Ireland and they celebrate this day like no others. Why is St Patrick so dear to the Irish? Check out this short vid.
As for the rest of the home nations, we celebrate our patron saints too but generally in a much more low-key manner (keine Große Sache werden). St George’s Day is for the English and is on April 23, the Welsh celebrate St David’s Day on March 1, (traditionally people wear a daffodil (Narzisse)) and the Scots celebrate St Andrew’s Day on 30 November.
So if you out on the town tomorrow and fancy (Bock haben) a bit of ‘craic’ (Irish for ‘good fun’) then pop over (vorbeischauen) to an Irish pub. Before you take a sip (einen Schluck nehmen) of your Guinness though, don’t forget to say Slainte (cheers).
P.S. This year it also falls on the day Ireland play England (in Twickenham, London) in the Rugby Six Nations (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France & Italy), which Ireland has actually already won and if they beat England they could win the so-called ‘grand slam’ for winning every game in the competition.