St. Pat's difficulties

**Maclachlan** · 21st February 08, 02:38 PM

Does that mean they're not going to dye the Chicago River green this year?

**Maclachlan** · 21st February 08, 02:40 PM

Whew! Answered my own question... Chicago's St Patrick's Day Ides of March!

**auld argonian** · 21st February 08, 02:46 PM

The river is dyed green by the Plumbers' Union.

As Dave Barry often says: I am not making this up.

Since the parade will be held on the Saturday before Holy Week, I expect that those prolific pipefitters will be out there in their speedboat dumping that magical orange stuff (it turns green when it hits the water) into the majestic Chicago River.

http://www.greenchicagoriver.com/

You may say, "I don't understand why they do this."

All I can do is quote Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness in that great made-in-Chicago (and my dad is in it!) motion picture, The Untouchables...

"Yeah...well, you're not from Chicago."

Best

AA

**sharpdressedscot** · 21st February 08, 04:27 PM

Hm, my band teacher was speaking of this today. I don't really see of it as a big deal, we just moved the celebration earlier than the actual date.

**McClef** · 21st February 08, 04:37 PM

Clearly it would be in breach of the rules to discuss the actions of Cardinal Egan v Church law in these forums.

Many fixed date festivals can be celebrated with a degree of flexibility for convenience and to avoid clashes. Saints days have a greater significance than the purely religious ones when they have a national and cultural aspect and I don't know of a bigger one in the US than St Patrick's for this. Last year different cities had celebrations on different days in any case even though there wasn't a clash with Easter!

I am sure that people will have a good time whenever they celebrate it and that's surely the main thing.