Happy St. Patrick's Day

Today is St. Patrick's Day, an occasion celebrated around the world by the Irish. Unfortunately, like Cinco de Mayo, the beer companies have pushed the commercialization of this day, minimizing the original religious and cultural significance. I have even seen how Guinness, the Irish brewer, is attempting to make St. Patrick's Day, a national holiday. I think everyone would be better off, if they simply picked up a copy of Dubliners by James Joyce and read it.

I will do a few things today. First, I will wish my brother Patrick, a happy feast day, since this is the day of the saint that he is named after. To be named Patrick in an Irish family is a pretty big responsibility and he has lived up to that honor.

Second, I thought that I would post some photos that I took when I was in Ireland in August 2006. From top to bottom, they are a photo of a statue of St. Patrick from a church in Central Dublin, some farmland in Western Ireland and a night shot of the Bank of Ireland located in Dublin. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Saturday Night Special

I had my brother Peter and a couple of his friends, Dominic and Paula, over for dinner tonight. Peter's friends were terrific people and I had a great time getting to know them. Dominic is a contractor so he was interested in looking around my house and gave me some good suggestions on some projects that I could undertake even giving me estimates on what the projects will cost. Dominic and Paula are also both from Ireland, own a home there and visit the country on a fairly frequent basis. As they have done with Peter, they invited me to meet up with them on one of their trips back to Ireland and provide a more personal guide to the country. I hope that I would be able to take them up on the offer sometime soon.

Overall the evening was very enjoyable and interesting as we talked about travel, the economy, and politics or perhaps more precisely foreign policy. Several bottles of wine were consumed. At one point I believe that we had solved most of the worlds major problems, unfortunately I didn't write down the answers and couldn't remember them this morning when I woke up.


Dominic and Paula own a house in a town just outside of Dublin called Ardan. The town name reminded me of a town that I had visited while in Ireland last September, which was called Adare. I've posted a picture of the Adare Manor Hotel, which is a beautifully restored hotel with a golf course. I have since read that President Clinton stayed there on his trip to Ireland in 1998. In any event it was nice to think back on my trip to Ireland and I found myself going through some of the pictures from that trip, I may post some more at a future time.