Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit; Happy St. Paddy’s Day-from Dublin! :)

There’s no better place in the world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than Ireland—and particularly, Dublin! Throughout the week, Dublin quickly became tourist central as people from all over the world appeared to gather in anticipation of the Irish festival. The shops certainly reflected this, whipping out these giant green hats (some with beards attached), beads, flags, banners—you name it in green, and it was there! The morning of St. Patrick’s Day, I got up quite early to be sure to explore the city before the madness commenced with the parade at 12 PM (or really, 10AM, considering people began lining up at 9!) I was heading back towards Trinity after taking some pictures, when all of sudden I heard my name being shouted from across the street. Upon looking over, I almost burst into tears of happiness when I realized it was three friends from Holy Cross who are studying at Oxford this academic year: Jill, Julia, and Emily. They had planned a last minute trip to Dublin, and we met completely by chance! Unfortunately, it was their last day in Dublin, but after helping them find the bus they were taking to UCD, we planned for meeting up later in the day!

I ended up going to the parade with my friend, Evelyn, who is from Belgium and studying at Trinity this semester! We were on our feet for about two hours in our spot before the parade reached us, headed with “St. Patrick” himself, and followed by high school bands, dance troupes, floats, and various other performances! After that, we went to lunch at a cute little café in Temple Bar—bearing witness to the excitement in Dublin, which was truly indescribable. People walked the streets (you could tell who the tourists were because they were the ones decked out in green), stopping to break out into a little jig, or belt out an Irish song. I finished the night meeting up with many Crusaders, and catching up for a few hours! We talked about how good it would be to return to Holy Cross (because that time is quickly approaching), the little things we would miss about our sites, and just reminisced over HC memories. It made me smile to realize that the Crusader family does really follow you, wherever you go—and there really couldn’t be a better second family.

I’ll leave you all with an popular Irish blessing:

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat
Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl
Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d’aghaidh
Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna
Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís,
Go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 18th, 2011 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit; Happy St. Paddy’s Day-from Dublin! :)”

1. Kelsey says:

   March 25, 2011 at 4:56 pm

   That all sounds amazing!!! I am sooo jealous!!! You must have had a blast!!!

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