Happy St. Patrick's Day from Belfast, Northern Ireland!

So, Gerald and I were in Belfast, Northern Ireland earlier today and got to see how the Irish celebrate St. Paddy's day in the North. We went to Dublin a couple of years ago to see how they did it in the South, and it was amazing to see the difference. I won't get into the details, but let's just say the South, being a predominantly Catholic country, celebrates it pretty big. Also, because a lot more tourist go towards Dublin when they visit Ireland, so you get the whole tourist crowd out celebrating as well. There were banners all over the streets, people dressed up, laughter, dancing, and drinking. Let's just say it was a good time!

The North is a bit different, you really don't want to talk religion here. Belfast was divided into East Belfast and West Belfast, pretty much based on religion. You know the Berlin Wall? Well, they had something similar back then to separate the two religions. You have the Protestants on one side and the Catholics on the other. As you can imagine, people don't go around parading down the street stating they're Catholic or Protestant because you might get into some trouble. We went out last night, and it was pretty dead, just a normal Saturday night with people out, but nothing crazy like Dublin. Also, this afternoon, there was a parade and concert and I was expecting the streets to be lined up with people and traffic to be a mess, but it was pretty calm. There were a good number of people out with their kids and decked out in green, but you know what? Most people were flying the Ireland (South) flag, makes sense...right? A pretty calm celebration but good nonetheless. It was pretty interesting to see how the Irish celebrate in two different parts of the country.

Anyhow, we saw the parade, then went on over to St. George's Market to see a school dance group perform. Here's a video of them doing the river dance. 

Meanwhile, in Chicago circa 2009, this is how 10 TX girls celebrated... A girlfriend of ours was attending MBA school at Loyola and was graduating in May of that year, so a bunch of us decided to pay her a visit on St. Patrick's Day weekend and party with the Irish Americans! Chicago has one of the biggest Irish immigrant population in the US, which explains why they do it so big here.  What a great St. Paddy's celebration that was. However, I must admit, us Americans, we're a bit over the top. They even died the river green! Here's a few pics one of the girls sent out earlier today to remind us of all the fun we had that weekend.

Hope you had a great St. Patrick's Day celebration, however you decided to do it. I got to indulge in some pretty good Bailey's and Chocolate brownies from the market today =P  - Slainte!