Happy St Patrick’s Day you mutha…

Not at all like my own Mum. There'd be a tea cosy on that pot for a start. Sunglasses in the house? No way. That colour hair? No. And more importantly, she has no need to pretend on either of the two days in question. OK, end of excessive schmaltziness.

If only all festivals could be this cooperative.

St Patrick’s Day only starts after midday in my English village – in the pub whose owner is married to a Mayo woman, which is run by a Leitrim man and which is frequented by the denizens of Clare, Tipperary and Antrim. Some British people manage to squeeze in too.

The delay is to accommodate Mothers’ Day in the morning. (American mothers are even more accommodating, they mark it on another day altogether.)

So if you’re an Irish mother, you’re welcome all day. On the downside, you may have to put up with plastic Shamrock-tinted tat.

I may drop in myself – just out of politeness… to Mothers.

But beforehand, as is traditional, I’ll link to my all -time favourite St Patrick’s Day joke.

And leave you with this I Spartacus-type short Patrick-themed film

Happy St Patrick’s Day (from an unlearned exile)

James Joyce. Writer, musician and singer, in Zurich, 1915.

And now this is another thing I’ve got in common with James Joyce… We’ve both been in Switzerland for St Patrick’s Day – which is today. Though I’m not planning to spend quite so many here as he did.

Greetings to everyone, from one who – like St Paddy – is “first of all, countrified, an exile, evidently unlearned, one who is not able to see into the future…”

I wish you strength in times of tribulation and the ability to take joy when it’s possible.

But I should really be offering something more amusing than that. Oh yes – there’s always my favourite St Patrick’s Day joke – it’s here. (Sorry, I’ve just the one.)

My favourite St Patrick’s Day joke

So now you know how the miracle happened. Obvious when you think about it really. Happy St Patrick’s Day to you all.   (The cartoon is an episode of The Adventures of Festy O’Semtex, from the July 1st 1994 edition of Phoenix Magazine, Dublin.)