St Patrick's
Night
by Dermot
Glennon
Well what in
bejaysus just look at yourself are you
over from Dublin tonight
Sure I’m a wee bog-leaping bastard
meself on me Grandmother’s
Godmother’s side
Now why are you here on a night like
tonight- sure isn’t Dublin the best
place to have it
I’d like to go out there just one
time myself to drink in the real craic
and to
Drink twenty pints and fall flat on my
back like the locals do every night over
there
Sure don’t get me wrong like this
place is alright but we’re overrun
by these student
Gobshites with their leprechaun accents
like Hollywood does and their stupid
pretensions
To true Irishness- other than that though
this place is alright but you can’t
beat the
Auld Dairt for a Saint Paddy’s night
I like the real thing- the authentic
Irish flavour you get in some backwater
town like Killorglan
I went there on holiday once- I’m
not born there- all the auld locals in
the pubs getting wasted
And dancing like Flattley- on the best
Guinness that I’ve ever tasted
What- you mean dancing like eegits
Exactly
You don’t perhaps think that it was
tourist season and the locals were having
a good laugh at you
No I expect they do this all times of the
year but on Saint Paddy’s day
they’d ALL be on the beer
And it would be authentic with none of
this bollocks of English people putting
on accents
And claiming that they have some kind of
roots
That they might or might not have but the
fact is they’re English and middle
class
Not like in Erin where they’d all be
out in the pubs getting pissed
No- I think you will find that they just
go to mass
And in most places people are hardworking
and sober and don’t touch a drop
except
When they leave and come over here and
they’re no more Irish than the ones
living here
What with that being the point of a
Diaspora and all- the authentic
experience is leaving
The place in which you were born-
harbouring dreams of returning once more
That become ever less likely as the years
go on and you settle down in a place
That you start to call home and all
dreams of Ireland are rose-tinted
fragmented
Memories built on only seeing it in
summer when everyone is out and about in
the streets
If you saw it in winter you’d just
see a bleak empty place swathed in the
smoke from the peat
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