I heard a couple stories this week (here in my town)
concerning two incidents of people getting their shorts in
a knot over someone wearing orange on St. Pat's
Day this year. I was aware that the color orange
represented the protestant faith (which I am) and is
one of the colors on the Irish flag. I can't imagine
the problem would be as simply bigoted as anti-protestant sentiment.
Well, well, well... All I can say is from some personal experience. My mother's family comes from Ballymena (NW of Belfast), Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. We still have quite a bit of family there and subscribe to the online version of the newspaper. Some may say that St. Patrick's Day is a Catholic holiday. But it's more of a holiday to celebrate those of Irish heritage because St. Patrick himself came back to Ireland because he loved it and he wanted to bring Christianity to the island. So St. Pat's is a great time to emulate his beliefs by also showing your love for the island, it's people and it's heritage. Back to the newspaper, it says quite boldly that you ARE NOT allowed to wear strong political symbolism to the St. Pat's celebration and they really pushed generic Irish Symbolism i.e. the Shamrock.
Foolishly hanging on to outdated dogma will never bring peace to Ireland.....and that's goes for both sides of the conflict.

Just enjoy the day, and enjoy the Irish.

Cheers,
T.R. Matthews