Why You Should Celebrate St. Patrick's Day In Ireland

St. Patrick’s Day will be upon us in a few short weeks and you know what that means? Green beer and stupid hats? Maybe, but that’s really only if you’re an American and can turn any holiday - traditional or obscure - into a reason to get drunk and cause a ruckus. At least you’re fun and know how to party! 

In Ireland, you will likely find NO green beer, shamrock sunglasses or green felt leprechaun hats, unless it is marketed solely to tourists. In fact, in Ireland St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday to commemorate the day that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland (Supposedly. I 'm pretty sure there weren’t any there in the first place. Easy!)

Photo by Skyler Gerald on Unsplash

With the holiday in Ireland becoming more secular and less celebrated came a brilliant idea from the government! Giant festivities to get people worldwide interested in traveling to Ireland to join the parties and soak up the culture! Meaning more tourism. 

Amazingly, the first festival to be held in Ireland didn't occur until 1996 and it was only one day. Since then, it has grown into a week-long celebration of all things Irish that draws hundreds of thousand of visitors every year who come to party, join parades, watch concerts, witness fireworks, attend sporting events, take in theater performances and, of course, to drink beer.

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Awesome Fact: Witness the shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the whole world in Dripsey, Ireland of County Cork. The parade lasts just 100 yards and travels between the village's two pubs.

Get yourself a GoCity Dublin Pass. As always, I am recommending this fantastic pass for those visiting Dublin. Not only is it a great deal if you plan to do a fair amount of sightseeing on the Emerald Isle, but it also it lets you skip the queues at the ticket booths. Your Dublin pass allows you to choose 3 attractions (Explorer pass) or unlimited attractions (all-inclusive) for an affordable price. The more attractions you visit, the better deal you get! It works at over 40 attractions, including the two following suggestions, a visit to Dublin Castle, Dublin Museum, and the Dublin Zoo.

Photo by Tavis Beck on Unsplash

My Goodness My Guinness! Do you love Guinness like I do? How would you like a FREE pint? If you’re in Ireland, take a walk through the Guinness Factory and see how it’s made, enjoy a free pint at the end of your tour and take in all of Dublin from the 360 degree view in the Gravity Bar on top of the factory. Before you leave, make sure to stop into the visitor centre and museum to view old adverts and pick up some souvenirs. Tip: Sign up for their newsletter for 10% off their admission fee of €20+.

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Do you prefer Jameson whiskey? You can take a distillery tour of their factory as well! Again, your tour ends with a good size “sample”. You can volunteer to do a taste-test, and if you are chosen it includes 3 Irish whiskeys, a Scotch whiskey and an American Whiskey and then a fancy diploma saying you took the taste test. Take a trip through the gift shop and buy a nice bottle for the rest of your trip or send some home for you, family or friends. The tour lasts 45 minutes and costs €26. Your visit includes 3 tastings + a signature cocktail.

Both tours were highly recommended by those that took one or both of them.

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Obviously, no matter where you are, you are bound to be near some St. Patrick’s Day celebrations on March 17th. Almost every city has an Irish pub that throws a huge party where everyone gets rip-roaring drunk, pretends they're Irish, wears crazy stuff and takes a cab home (hopefully) in the wee hours of the morning to sleep it off. 

In Portland, that party can go on for many nights, depending what day St. Patrick’s Day falls on. Our popular restaurant called Kells takes up an entire city block with tents full of vendors and music and all things Irish and people have been known to take days off of work, just so they can start their weekend partying early. Google your city's events for the week of St. Patrick's Day and find the good celebrations.

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And if you’d like to at least see a bit of Ireland even if you can’t visit, check out some of these movies to enjoy the rolling green countryside and Irish lilt:

Angela’s Ashes

The Banshees of Inisherin (lovely tiny town along the sea)

Belfast

Boy Eats Girl (kitchy rom-zom movie)

Braveheart

The Crying Game

Darby O’Gill and the Little People

Far and Away

The Guard

The Informer

Laws of Attraction

Leap Day (best sightseeing in a movie, by far)

Michael Collins

The Princess Bride

P.S. I Love You (my pick for 2^nd best sightseeing movie)

The Secret of Roan Inish

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (no Irish accents, but landscape)

Tristan & Isolde

Waking Ned Devine

This is by no means all of them, just ones that I know are probably available through your favorite streaming service(s). You can find a more complete list here.

How will you be spending your St. Patrick's Day?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Should you make a purchase through them, I may be monetarily compensated. This is absolutely free for you and helps me continue to bring you the travel tips you want, so thanks in advance.

Black Entertainment History at the Academy Museum

While in Los Angeles last summer, we decided to spend half a day exploring the city before moving from our hotel at Universal Hollywood to our one in Anaheim. We spent half the day at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is amazing if you love movies.

Not only do they have a whole exhibit dedicated to The Godfather movies, but they also have one of the surviving prop sharks Bruce from Jaws. There's even a large portion of an exhibit that celebrates the movie Casablanca.

The best temporary exhibit, of the few they have in their 3 floors of art, was one called Regeneration, an exhibit of Black entertainers through history, much of which included a lot of racist tropes and images. If that is too much for you, this exhibit may not be for you, but I greatly appreciated the story of where Black entertainers started and how they defied the odds to become stars, against all odds.

click on this pic for full res - all of these people deserve all the recognition

There is a whole wall of entertainers that performed in something called "soundies", which were 3-minute musical films that were projected on a machine that looked like a jukebox, but was more like a TV. Between 1940 and 1947, businesses that owned a Panoram machine got 8 new soundies shipped to them to be played on their machines. Each week they would get new ones, and though soundies that featured Black stars were put at the end of the reels, it was still great exposure for them to be seen by a wider audience beyond clubs where they may only been seen otherwise.

Balcony Seating Only, by Gary Simmons

You'll find some artwork interspersed with film posters, costumes, and other props, like the above sculpture that is an actual staircase that was inspired by a photo of a segregated theater in Alabama. It is part of his series of "erasure paintings", and serves of a reminder of spaces that divided along race lines and isolated Black spectators and even performers from others. I included another piece of artwork in my last post. A piece that that speaks of the racial disparities during the Civil Rights era, by using denim, wood, and firehose. At the time, Black people were being sprayed with fire hoses, while white people were dancing shoeless, so as not to scuff wooden floors of the school gym floors. The denim represents the overalls worn by the students involved in the civil rights struggles. 

There's an entire section devoted to Miss Josephine Baker, who moved to Paris to fulfill her dream of becoming a bigger star than she was able to become in America. The awards section extends up here, too. You can see Sidney Poitier's award as the first Black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. There's a small tribute to Hattie McDaniel, who played the part of Mammy in Gone With the Wind. She went from playing vaudeville with her family to moving to Los Angeles and becoming the first Black actor to win a competitive Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

I watch a lot of old movies, but through this exhibit, I found out about a lot of movies I'd never even heard of. There was even a big portion on blacksploitation films. I've heard of some and watched some as well, but learned quite a bit about why they are important and was able to sit down and watch a portion of some of the movies that were crucial to the movement. The director Melvin Van Peebles made quite a few influential films during the 60s and 70s.

an outfit worn by Sammy Davis Jr

zoot suits worn in Stormy Weather

If you are like me and enjoy historical textiles and costumes, you'll find a lot of these at the Academy Museum. The Regeneration exhibit had a few, like these amazing costumes above. 

Also in the main exhibits, you can still see props/costumes from some of Hollywood's biggest Black entertainers, including Halle Berry's Oscar dress from 2002. Though she's had so many iconic looks, this is the dress you immediately think of when you think of the Halle Berry look. Also on display is a baseball uniform worn by Richard Pryor and facial prosthetics worn by Zoe Saldana. 

I found the permanent exhibits just as interesting as the rotating ones and I could have easily spent several more hours there, reading about each Academy Award and watching more acceptance speeches. Make sure to plan for at least 3 hours. If you spend less time there, you an eat at the restaurant on-site, which I thought was quite good, or hit up the Los Angeles County Museum of Art nearby. There are plenty of outdoor places to eat right outside as well, and you can park in the garage for a fee, so you aren't driving in circles looking for street parking.

While you may not be able to visit this particular exhibit on Black entertainment history, you never know what you may find at museums of all kinds on your travels. I'm almost always pleasantly surprised when I visit museums, so I definitely encourage you to give different ones a chance before deciding it's not going to be fun or interesting.

Tell me your favorite awards speech(es) from the shows you've watched over the years.

Apps to Learn Back History On Your Travels

I don't know about you, but I try to support and learn about local businesses in my home city and wherever I travel. I want small businesses to succeed and in particular Black-, Asian-, and women-owned businesses are at the top of that list. I seek those out at home and when I'm when I'm on vacation, so I know my money is going into the local economy instead of some big conglomerate. I also like to be entertained and learn new things, and download great podcasts for my plane ride.

Some Remember Sock Hops, Others Remember Riots by artist Theaster Gates

For Black History Month, let's talk about the apps that can help you find Black businesses, learn more about Black History, and celebrate Black culture:

EatOkra

This app features Black-owned restaurants and eateries. It's how we've found amazing places to eat near home and also close to accommodations when we've traveled. It's not exhaustive, but it's pretty good and worth the space it occupies on my phone. Bonus: you can get more Black-owned restaurant recommendations and learn when Black Restaurant Week is around the country on Black Restaurant Weeks. 

Adventurely

The app that helps travelers connect with others to share experiences while out in the world. While you can use it to find others who want to do the same tours or museums as you, there is a whole section called Global Black Diaspora History and Culture collection that allows you to learn more Black History on your travels and share those experiences with others who are also traveling at the same time.

Babbel

If you're hoping to travel to other countries to learn history and culture, you may want to learn the language spoken there. Limited to some of the most spoken languages in the world, Babbel can help you prepare for your trip. For example, there are lots of countries with large Black communities that speak Portuguese as a the official language. Just a few of these are Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde.

A temporary exhibit at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

More Than a Mapp

Wherever you go, you can find points of interest and historical markers for Black history. Set you location in the app and then you can use the interactive map to point you to important places and then learn about what makes them significant through words, links, photos, and videos. (So far this is only available for Apple devices.)

Airfordable

This app, by CAma Marfo, a Black entrepreneur, helps make travel easier and more affordable for you by allowing you to pay an up-front fee and then pay off your trip in installments, ensuring that your trip is paid for before you leave and you aren't left in travel debt and not being able to to again for a long time.

TravSolo

Chizoba Anyaoha wants everyone to travel, so they made this app to help you plan your solo travels more easily and help you connect with others, all while feeling safe and creating awesome memories. They know solo travel planning can be daunting, and almost half of people surveyed said that creating a good itinerary was the hardest part of travel. You choose your interests and TravSolo can help you plan a trip in as little as 3 minutes. Let friends and family follow your trip in real time and feel secure meeting up with new people who are also traveling solo and/or share your interests.

Blapp

This app, designed to help you find more black-owned businesses, was created by New York comedian Jon Laster. Discover restaurants, clubs, boutique shops and more where you can support the community either at home or away. You can also order items from black-owned businesses that sell everything from art to beauty products. 

Photo by Jessica Lewis on Unsplash

Black History Quiz

Got some time to spare? Test your knowledge and expand what you've already learned through quizzes. You can't move on until you get the correct answer, so you can easily learn what you don't know. What a great way to "waste" time.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

The Root

Support Black writers by exploring the day's news in all genres, but also listen to podcasts, watch slideshows and more, right from your phone, all by prominent Black journalists that may give you a new perspective of current stories.

Photo by Trevor Vannoy on Unsplash

Honorable Mentions: National Parks App

While this app doesn't explicitly give you Black and African American historical information, the National Parks have been preserving Black history and stories for visitors. With over 400 parks, each having a rich backstory featuring Black culture and notable points in history, you can get outside and also learn more about this country's past with elevated multi-generational Black stories. Learn more on their website.

The podcast Fanti

Not an app, but part of an app you probably already have on your phone to listen to other podcasts you love. Fanti is a pop-culture podcast run by Black hosts who talk about fandom and other relevant topics that they enjoy, but effect the Black community and fans in an entirely different way than it's white audience (i.e. when you love the art, but the artist is problematic, or vice versa). The episodes are great for downloading and listening on long plane/train/car rides.

Other podcasts you might enjoy are Heat Rocks, Black People Love Paramore, and Minority Korner. Heat Rocks is hosted by two minorities, one a Black woman, who talk to guests about hot music right now. Black People Love Paramore features Sequoia Holmes talking to other Black people about things we don't think are that interesting to non-white people, like the show Boy Meets World, the band Fallout Boy, and tattoos. 

I hope some of these will help you travel more easily, plus educate yourself while having fun traveling. I know that they can really be a great addition to trips and help you fill in time with something educational, important, fun, or tasty. Minority Korner is hosted by self-proclaimed black nerd James Arthur M as he talks with other minorities about pop culture, news, media, and history. 

Share your favorite travel apps with us. Bonus points if they are Black-created or celebrate Black culture.