What have we done

46 comments
  1. How many leprechauns have been brutally slaughtered and run from their homes to make this happen! It’s 2022! Leprechauns have feelings and we should expand our moral circle to consider their feelings.

    #shameonyourchicago

  2. As a Chicago native, it’s been a tradition for nearly 50 years and we use non-toxic eco friendly dye so it’s not exactly as bizarre as people think 🙂

  3. I love how much Americans celebrate Paddy’s Day, in fact how much the entire world celebrates Paddy’s Day. I dunno about you guys but growing up in Donegal we learnt the story of St Patrick every single year in both Irish and English and performed dramatisations in class. We created paddy’s day badge and wore them with SUCH pride at the parades. St Patrick’s Day has always held such joy in my heart and as I grew older it always touched me so much how much the world celebrates it with us. I live in England now and my own son who is 7 absolutely GOES TO TOWN for paddy’s day haha. He’s already asked for his Paddy’s Day shamrock glasses and badge and sash and the whole schabang so I GET why the descendants of Irish across the world really go OTT on Paddy’s Day. It matters !! I love this xx

  4. Years ago on the ha’penny bridge waiting for the lights to change. Two yanks ahead of me, one gestures to the Liffey “oh wow, look, they dye their river green for paddy’s day too!”

    I didn’t have the heart to tell him so I leaned over and said “no no pal, we do one better and keep it that colour all year round”.

  5. All I want is a pint (and not a fecking green one) and some drunk people stumbling along with instruments while I freeze my sensitive parts off. Nobody asked to make fluorescent rivers.

  6. I live in the states and find the whole Paddy’s day shite they go on with nauseating. My kids have to make leprechaun traps for school. They have taken paddy’s day and made their own version of paddywhackery.

  7. I had an Irish friend who was very offended when I said happy st paddy’s day…she said it’s st PATricks day.. is that a thing? is st paddy’s day offensive ?

  8. I live in Columbus, Ohio & our town council last week proclaimed the 17th to be Irish Heritage Day. People are upset because one of our nearby cities, Dublin, cancelled the parade this coming week because conditions will be too windy for balloons. Also, sooooo much of the town decor is green in Dublin. Even the police cars have green. It’s not even a nice green either. I’m sorry.

  9. Old Man Daley was a fucking boss. He saved Chicago, too bad his son was such a dumbass he shit all over the family legacy.

    Paddy’s day here is just people giving themselves an excuse to be wasted. Me, personally, after 22 I didn’t really care about drinking so much, it was legal and not a big deal. Plus all the awful things I did drunk, the guilt and shame. I would imagine the bars are mostly college kids because I don’t really know many people who make a big deal about it.

  10. There were calls for people to use blue and yellow this year instead of green in solidarity with the Ukrainians….

    Just thinking if you put yellow dye and blue dye in a river it would turn green pretty quickly anyway 😂

  11. In before the “Ireland’s colour is blue not green” comments.

    Just to clarify, St Patrick’s blue was Ireland’s colour under British rule. It was often (and still *kind of* is) used as a unionist symbol. But as the movements of independence/republicanism grew, we associated more with green.

    On a slightly related note: St Patrick’s saltire, the red x on the union jack transposed (vexillologists will know the right word) over St Andrew’s saltire and the English flag, is also a unionist symbol and is frequently used in St Patrick’s Day parades in the six counties. Which is also why it’s a contentious symbol in some circles.

  12. I’ve always said to my missus that if cultural appropriation is to be considered a thing, the Paddy’s day is cultural appropriation gang-rape.

  13. I like to think it began because the river was so polluted that the city council had to pretend it was for St. Patrick’s Day. Now, a century later, they are forced to maintain the pretense.

  14. Don’t listen to the haters, I’m Irish and proud so many around the world want to celebrate it with us, sights like this every year are so cool!

  15. The way Chicago does Paddy’s Day has paid for so much of my life. Irish parents own an Irish bar in the city. Keep it going, my folks are retiring soon. After that, we can stop, I promise.

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