'Tis meself and the Missuz in front of the Crown in Belfast.
Ireland has thousands of pubs, but only one is a landmark: the Crown Liquor Saloon, on Great Victoria Street in the heart of downtown Belfast. It is unique and one of the world’s most beautiful pubs. I have been in hundreds of bars in my lifetime, but nothing compares to the Crown’ s unique Baroque interior, which feels as much like an Italian church as it does a pub.
Ireland has thousands of pubs, but only one is a landmark: the Crown Liquor Saloon, on Great Victoria Street in the heart of downtown Belfast. It is unique and one of the world’s most beautiful pubs. I have been in hundreds of bars in my lifetime, but nothing compares to the Crown’ s unique Baroque interior, which feels as much like an Italian church as it does a pub.
Although the pub dates from 1826, it acquired its one-of-a-kind character much later, during the Victorian Age. In 1885, the owner’s son, having just returned from an extended continental visit and deeply impressed with Italian architecture, wanted to remodel the pub, capturing Baroque flamboyance in its design. Fortunately, he was in luck because at the time there were a number of Italian craftsmen in the city building churches. He hired them to moonlight designing the Crown and the result is a pub with a wonderfully eccentric, ecclesiastical feeling. Taking in the quasi-religious pub features and knowing Belfast’s deep piety, you may rightly wonder whether the Crown was really designed as a tongue-in-cheek parody of the churches around it: Presbyterian headquarters is just down the street, and many others churches surround it.
Perhaps some of the local churchmen secretly slipped into the Crown’s most famous feature, its famous snugs - Victorian wooden booths with private doors, stained glass panels carved lions and griffins' heads that are part church pew, part confessional box.The 10 elegant snugs were built with with intricate handcrafted Italian paneling, soft leather seating and even gunmetal plates, once used for striking matches. The snugs, which shield the drinkers inside from prying eyes, were installed to allow Victorian women and upper class drinkers the chance to imbibe anonymously. They were also constructed with bells so that the drinkers could be served without ever having to reveal their identities to anyone but the waiters. Today the snugs are an amazingly cozy way to share a few brews with close friends.
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The first recorded parade honoring the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is held in what is now St. Augustine, Florida.
Records show that a St. Patrick’s Day parade was held on March 17, 1601 in a Spanish colony under the direction of the colony's Irish vicar, Ricardo Artur. More than a century later, homesick Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched in Boston in 1737 and in New York City on March 1762.
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Although many assume that St. Patrick is of Irish descent, he was actually not born in Ireland. ... Patrick's parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Italians living on a British estate. So technically – he's Italian.
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In America, St. Patrick’s Day, on March 17, has long been commemorated with rollicking festivities, but until recent decades, the holiday, which honors Ireland’s patron saint, was traditionally a more solemn occasion on the Emerald Isle.
The man for whom St. Patrick’s Day is named was born into an aristocratic family in Roman Britain around the end of the fourth century. As a teenager, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and taken to Ireland, where he was held as a slave for a number of years. He eventually escaped the island, only to return later as a missionary and convert part of the population to Christianity. Centuries after his death, which some sources cite as March 17, 461, although the exact date is unknown, Patrick became the patron saint of Ireland, and March 17 became a holy day of obligation for the nation’s Catholics.
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Dublin’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations may not be as big as New York City’s - but they are much longer.
The city celebrates the public holiday with a week of celebrations which include boat races, street and music performances, the Irish Beer & Whisky Festival, and, of course, the parade.
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This year St. Paddy's Day in Chicago will be a little different.
The tradition of dying the river started in 1961 when the chairman of the parade at the time saw green dye in the river. At the time, green dye signalled illegal pollution.
But taking something negative and turning it into a positive, the parade chairman got the idea to turn the river green in celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day.
Now, the start to Saint Patrick’s day is marked with the dyeing of the river, which draws 450,000 people, and then continues to the parade which starts at noon, where more spectators arrive to join in on the celebrations.
The parade lasts for three hours and follows a route from Columbus Drive through Grant Park.
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St. Patrick's Day is celebrated all year
long by the Irish. Here's a nice little gift
for that special Irish gal in your life.
Click on the picture above for information on these earrings
They're only $18.00 with free shipping. You can find something nice for
your Mom, your wife, your daughter or your girlfriend right here:
An entire day dedicated to celebrating Maureen O'Hara, seems reasonable to me
ReplyDeleteAround my house my father used to refer to St. Pat's day as St Paddy the Pig day. Corn beef and cabbage ain't got nothing on a traditional Italian St. Joseph's Table which is this Sunday 03-19, and yes we still start off the festivities by saying a rosary before we dig in
ReplyDeleteIn Boston, 3/17 is a legal holiday, not because of St. Pat, but because on this date Gen. Washington's army on Dorchester Heights and forced the British to evacuate Boston.
ReplyDeleteHis guns, dragged across New England in the dead of winter, didn't have any powder or shot, or very little. So he had run a bluff.
Yet Asshatchusetts has some of the most onerous gun laws in the country.
DeleteYou and the Missuz?
ReplyDeleteI'd say you married well.