Young People In Their Irish Party Tshirts Vs. Organized Religion

It is very hard to ignore the complaints of religious organizations when they speak out against how holidays that were actually established by the Catholic religion are being taken over by things the Papacy stands so firmly against. If you’ll look at a holiday like Saint Patrick’s for instance, you’ll see that it no longer even vaguely resembles the honor and stiff religious prestige it once did. Now the day in question is nothing but a revelry of raucous behavior in silly Irish shirts.

The Catholic Church holds Saint Patrick in especially high esteem. The entire island nation of Ireland was once dominated by a Celtic people who worshiped their own ancestors and a multitude of gods that demanded sacrifice and war. Saint Patrick was a holy man who traveled back to Ireland after escaping captivity there solely for the purpose of converting the population. Now, Ireland is mostly stalwart Catholics because of him. If you were Catholic, wouldn’t the drunkenness and goofy Irish tshirts bother you?

Who really goes out to pray and attend services on March 17th these days? When the kids fill up the bars and pubs with their crazy costumes and Saint Patrick’s Day Irish tee shirts, do you think they are really paying homage to a Saint who has been dead for hundreds of years? The holiday is nothing like it once was. Considering the lack of education in this country, I would be honestly surprised if most of the youth even knows who Saint Patrick was.

While I know for a fact that Catholicism would love nothing more than to throw the brakes on and halt the progress into secular debauchery that St. Patrick’s Day is hurtling towards, I fear that the train is now officially out of control. Stopping kids from going out and throwing back green beer in those cheap Irish tee shirts is not possible any more. The church would have to instill something resembling reverence, and we are certainly no longer a reverential people.

As far as I am concerned, you can rock out in your drinking Irish tshirts all night long on Saint Patrick’s Day. Not only am I not really all that religious by nature, but I am very likely to be right next to you at the bar ordering a pint of green beer with you. What I do suggest, however, is that you take just a minute of your precious time to look up the historical facts concerning this holiday that we have butchered through the years. It’s not so much to request, really. It might give you something interesting to talk about between shots of whiskey.

The Problem I Have With Kids On St. Patrick’s Day And Their Silly Irish Tshirts

When I was growing up and well into my early twenties, we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in a way that would be wholly unrecognizable to what we see these days. In my day, the day was spent actually honoring St. Patrick and Ireland. There was a special mass, we said our prayers, we cooked a special meal, and then all of the men would meet down at the local watering hole and knock back a few while telling stories about our forefathers. We certainly didn’t get sick on green beer and wear outrageous Irish t-shirts.

You know, they really snuck up on us with this whole “Saint Patrick’s Day is a party day” thing. One year it’s just me and the rest of the old fogies sitting around and having a few frothy beers while we do what we’ve always done. Maybe we notice a few new faces hanging around, but it’s nothing drastic. Before you know it, the pub is swarming with kids in green Irish tees all throwing down shots of whiskey and acting crazy. I’m not really sure I can put a finger on when the change took place.

The main problem I have with the whole thing is that these young people seem just so darn disrespectful about it. They throw Irish whiskey down their throats, they wear offensive Irish shirts, and they raise all kinds of hell all night long. The things they wear and the way they act almost seems like a mockery of my heritage, and I can’t help but get a bit irate at that. None of them would know a real Irishman if he knocked them in the head with a Blackwood stick.

What would really calm my nerves about the whole problem I have with what St. Patrick’s has turned into, is if any of these youth would show even the slightest interest in learning something about Ireland or its people. Instead of showing even the tiniest bit of interest, they seem to look at the new incarnation of the holiday as just another reason the get drunk and flirt with each other. You don’t need my holiday and you don’t need offensive Irish t-shirts for that.

I know you’ve read this article and are thinking that I’m the most ornery man on the planet. Well, I don’t sit on my front porch and yell at kids to get off my front lawn. I just want the homeland of my people honored like it should be, and those silly Irish tees just don’t cut it. It also needs to be mentioned that once I’m good and toasted on Saint Patrick’s Day, I tend to care a lot less about what shirts people are wearing and how young they are. After a few pints, everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day.