The luck of the Irish

How do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?  Do you ignore the holiday altogether?  Wear a little green on March 17?  Go all out because you are Irish and wear a kelly green T-shirt, shamrock socks, a shamrock tattoo on your face, and green antenna shamrocks on top of your head.

You mean you've never seen anyone go all out for St. Patrick's Day?  Well, if you live in Dublin, OH you see it  all over town, especially today!

Today is Dublin's St. Patrick's Day parade, and it seems the entire city is green!  We have lived in Dublin for about 29 years and look forward to the pre-parade pancake breakfast and parade every year.

The parade starts at 11 AM but people start setting out chairs to claim spots by 8 AM.  We found a great spot near the pre-parade performance stage and set out our 4 Buckeye chairs.

At the breakfast, Irish music plays in the background, the Sells Middle School cafeteria is teaming with all things green, and the local Lion's Club sells raffle tickets, 20 for $10.

But the main draw?  The opportunity to eat green pancakes with green syrup!

After the savory and fun breakfast we go out to the main street, stroll through some of the quaint downtown stores, like the genuine Irish store Ha'Penny, before making our way to the stage area to listen to the Hooligans, a fun Irish band who play crowd Celtic favorites such as Danny Boy to pass the time waiting for the parade to start.

Soon, we hear the police car sirens to kick off the parade, make our way to our parade seats and settle in for 90 minutes of marching bands, tiny majorettes, police motorcycles, fire trucks and politicians, as many parades have.

But this is a St. Patrick's Day parade, and so we also look forward to seeing green, green and more GREEN.  What makes this parade special?

Giant Shamrock balloons! And . . .

Irish Wolfhounds

and . . .

giant stilt walkers with Shamrock pants and green banners!

Yes--

in Dublin, Ohio we LOVE St. Patrick's Day!!