Project launched to look into St Patrick's Day events

A new project, being launched fittingly on Wednesday, marks the start of work by a team of researchers at Queen’s University Belfast into the variety of St Patrick’s Day celebrations around the world.

'On St. Patrick’s Day everybody is Irish' is an oft-quoted cry by the organisers of St. Patrick’s Day parades around the globe. In the London event, for example, organisers even state ‘you don’t have to be Irish to join in - Chinese dragons, Bhangra drummers and Carnival costumed walkers are all welcome to join in this big celebration’.

Reflecting on comments like that above, Dominic Bryan, Director of the Institute of Irish Studies, said the project idea germinated from a discussion he had with two lecturers from the School of Anthropological Studies. “We talked about the widely differing and developing traditions of celebrating St Patrick’s Day that we had witnessed over the last decade in Belfast, Dublin, London, New York – and further afield.”

Project team member Jonathan Skinner, Lecturer in Anthropological Studies, described his experience of celebrating St Patrick’s Day in 2000 on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. “Some people of Montserrat celebrated the slave Patrick who freed them – as a slave uprising commemorated; while for others it was perhaps a tourist attraction to see the Black Irish of the Caribbean celebrating!” he said.

From such discussions the ‘St Patrick’s Day Project’ was born with a web-based survey being launched this week, where the Queen’s researchers invite people in all parts of the world to contribute to their study by providing details of their own St Patrick’s Day experiences.

“The Project will map and record the variety of St Patrick’s Day celebrations around the world, leading to improved understanding of the reasons behind the the celebrations,” Dr Bryon said. “ We are interested in hearing what people do on St Patrick’s Day where they live – even if they do nothing in particular.”

To have your say on celebrating St Patrick’s Day, visit Queen's University Institute of Irish Studies web site at www.qub.ac.uk/iis/.

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