Shamrock shenanigans - 40 Shades of Green around the world

The green London Eye

After St. Patrick’s Day yesterday the greening of the world seems complete as the 17th March seems to have morphed into a “Greenfest” not just for people of Irish extraction but those who want to join in and be Irish for a day. Indeed in a sign of the mark made by Irish Culture many people from places as extreme as Ulan Bator to Wolverhampton feel they have a little bit of the Irish in them. The attitude is best summed up by an Irish Bar in Toronto which had the slogan “Same Ireland, different country!”


The green fountains of Trafalgar Square, London




Paddy's Day in Trafalgar Square London

The St. Patrick's Festival is Ireland's official celebration for its national holiday - St. Patrick's Day on Tuesday 17th March 2009. St. Patrick and St. Bridgid are the patron saints of Ireland but the former is better known due to the world wide Paddy Whackery which takes place on his feast day and indeed over a number of days. In my hometown of Dublin the festival now lasts 4 days – a far cry from many years ago when I used to stand with my Scout Group as part of the “Guard of Honour” in front of the reviewing stand at the GPO in Dublin's main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street, and watch a succession of commercial floats, Irish Dancing schools and over excitable American majorettes go by in a parade of dismal banality.








The Dublin Parade

The Dublin Parade has come on in leaps and bounds and is now an entertaining display of street theatre. In a tangible sign of the greening of the world several of the world's landmarks are turned green for St Patrick's Day, the annual celebration of all hues of Irishness. London's Eye and the Trafalgar Square fountains became green as did The Sydney Opera House, Toronto’s CN Tower and New York's Empire State building were lit up by green floodlights as part of a marketing push by Tourism Ireland. In Chicago the wonderfully titled Chicago River and Sanitary Canal is dyed green for a week.






The Chicago Parade



How green is my river? Chicago


Saint Patrick's Day (Irish: Lá 'le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially is the feast day which annually celebrates Saint Patrick (386-493), the patron saint of Ireland, on March 17. It is a national holiday in the Republic of Ireland (a bank holiday in Northern Ireland).


A green Sydney Opera House

Yesterday, Saint Patrick's Day was celebrated worldwide by Irish people and increasingly by many of non-Irish descent. Celebrations are generally themed around all things green and Irish; both Christians and non-Christians celebrate the secular version of the holiday by wearing green, eating Irish food, imbibing Irish drink, and attending parades. The St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, Ireland is part of a five day festival, with over 500,000 people attending. The largest St. Patrick's Day parade is held in New York City and it is watched by 2 million spectators. The St. Patrick's Day parade was first held in New York City on 17 March, 1756 when Irish soldiers marched through the city. Parades also take place in other Irish towns and villages. Other large parades include those in Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Coatbridge, Montreal, Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, Savannah, Pittsburgh, Denver, Sacramento, Scranton and Toronto. Large parades also take place in other places throughout Europe and the Americas, as well as Australia and Asia.


Yer Man himself, St. Paddy




NYC - A green Empire State of mind

The New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade is remarkably now in its 255th Year. It is the Daddy of them All and of course after American Independence it became a focus of displays of Irish national spirit which could not be expressed in an Ireland which was then under British rule. On sale now for St. Patrick’s Day is a one-of-a-kind book which chronicles the Irish-American pride that has fuelled the NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade, the oldest parade in the country. This handsome book has been produced under the aegis of Quinnipiac University Press. Ninety minutes from New York City and two hours from Boston, Quinnipiac University is located next to picturesque Sleeping Giant Mountain in Hamden, Conn. The campus is home to 5,900 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students, coming from 30 states and several countries.


The New York St. Patrick's Day Parade passing St. Patrick's Cathedral

Its President John L. Lahey was presented by President Bill Clinton with the Irish American of the Year Award by Irish America Magazine at a luncheon ceremony at the New York Yacht Club on March 15. "This is one of the greatest days of my life," said Lahey, who was honoured for his work in pioneering collegiate study of Ireland's Great Hunger and his remarkable commitment to promoting Irish-American heritage.

For more about the Irish Famine see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/gorta-mor-irelands-great-hunger.html

Lahey has been involved with the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade for more than 30 years and currently serves as vice chairman of the Parade Committee. He was grand marshal in 1997. "I am deeply honoured to be recognized with such a remarkable group of people," Lahey said. Lahey presented Clinton with a copy of the Quinnipiac University Press book, "Celebrating 250 Years of the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade." Filled with a detailed account of the parade through the years, with stunning historic images and photographs, this book preserves the past and celebrates the present.


I love green New York


Celebrating 250 Years of the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade.

www.250yearsparadebook.com

For more about St. Patrick see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/03/st-paddys-day-blog.html





Green Angel of the North, Gateshead, England

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

From the Independent Newspaper, London, 29th August 2008.
PA Report.

The American Dream is alive and the nation can be better than it has been during the last eight years of President George Bush, Barack Obama said as he accepted the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Delivering the most important speech of his life to more than 80,000 people at an open-air stadium in Denver, Colorado, Mr Obama left no doubt America was ready for change and said it was time for voters to stand up and say: "Eight is enough!"

"I get it," he said. "I realise that I am not the likeliest candidates for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington. But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's about you." Mr Obama confronted every criticism made by Mr McCain and the Republicans of his campaign and the Democrats head-on, from his ego and rock star status to his lack of foreign policy experience and his tax policies.

"If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have," Mr Obama declared, referring to his rival's notorious temper and criticism of his own lack of experience. "America, we are better than these last eight years," he said. "We are a better country than this." Mr Obama, who made history on Wednesday as the first African American US presidential nominee of a major party, said: "This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive." The 47-year-old Illinois senator said his Republican rival John McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, had "voted with George Bush 90 per cent of the time".

"I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 per cent chance on change," he said. Mr Obama, whose keynote address at the party's 2004 convention shot him to fame, gave his 44-minute acceptance speech last night 45 years to the day after Martin Luther King Jr inspired the world with his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"America, we cannot turn back," he said.

The final day of the convention was moved outside to the Invesco Field stadium in a bid to show his candidacy extends beyond the politicians who have dominated the convention so far. Ten supporters, including some who donated only $5 (£2.72), were invited to join Mr Obama backstage beforehand and watched his speech from the front row. At the end of a convention dominated by the issue of unity between Mr Obama and his former rival Hillary Clinton, the Democrat received the loudest applause when he embraced the idea of coming together.

"The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook," he said. "The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America." Mr Obama said America needed to restore its "sense of higher purpose" and "the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort."

The Democrat also confronted the McCain campaign's accusations over his ego and celebrity status. He said his grandmother Sarah in Kenya had worked hard so that he could have a better life and "poured everything she had into me. I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine," he said. Striving to dismiss criticisms that his lofty, inspirational campaign consisted of empty rhetoric, he set out "exactly what change would mean if I am president".

He pledged to cut taxes for 95 per cent of all working families, end US dependence on oil from the Middle East within 10 years and create jobs for Americans. America's troubled economy and its national security were his central focus. He said he had "made clear we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights" and added: "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives." Mr Obama went on: "As commander-in-chief I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home." He offered details of his plans for energy and education, health and the climate crisis and pre-empted criticism he was a liberal who believed in "spend, spend, spend. I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow," he said. Mr Obama added that America's failure to respond to its challenges were "a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W Bush".

It was time for Republicans to "own their failure", he said. "It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for President of the United States." Fireworks erupted over the stadium as Mr Obama was joined by his wife Michelle and daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven, at the end of his speech. A bid to get most of those packed into the stadium to form the world's largest phone bank - text-messaging thousands more to boost voter registration for November's general election - also underscored how the Obama campaign has harnessed modern technology to garner support in what polls indicate will be a close race between Mr Obama and Mr McCain for a place in history as the 44th president of the United States. At the end of a convention dominated by the issue of unity between Mr Obama and his former rival Hillary Clinton, the Democrat received the loudest applause when he embraced that theme.


He said some critics dismissed such suggestions as "happy talk", but he said that when rivals did not have any fresh ideas, they "use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from," he said. "You make a big election about small things." Mr Obama used his speech to confront every criticism made by Mr McCain and the Republicans of his campaign and the Democrats.

"These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States." He also described his former rival Hillary Clinton as "a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours". He even echoed Mrs Clinton's passionate speech on Tuesday night when he said: "I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's about you."

Striving to dismiss criticisms that his lofty, inspirational campaign consisted of empty rhetoric, he set out "exactly what change would mean if I am president". America's troubled economy and its national security were his central focus, with pledges to cut taxes for 95 per cent of all working families, end US dependence on oil from the Middle East within 10 years and create jobs for Americans. "We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. As commander-in-chief I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home."

He also detailed his plans on energy and education, health and the climate crisis. Mr Obama then pre-empted criticism he was a liberal who believed in "spend, spend, spend". "I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow," he said. Mr Obama added that America's failure to respond to its challenges were "a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W Bush".

It was time for Republicans to "own their failure", he said. "It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for President of the United States."