It’s technically our birthday. You may recall that Clover’s Revenge was born on St. Paddy’s Day of 2015. We played a Gulf Gate dive bar called Chester’s Reef. It was full of strangers, friends and people that John had cajoled to come out. Our sound was raw. We were actually pretty bad, as far as bands go. We knew most of the Irish songs that dear friends from Ireland would later describe as ‘red cards,’ and we had a few bangers. Beau and John were drunk as skunks, and we were so sure that we had something great. Here we are, eleven years later, and the gigs have improved massively.
This year’s Saint Patrick’s Day celebration is on a Tuesday, which means that it technically starts on the Friday before and ends at midnight on the 17th. Lucky us! It’s five days of kelly green shenanigans. We’re traveling to Saint Augustine and Savannah to perform on the weekend, and then we’re playing at home on the 17th. When we say ‘home,’ we mean ‘among our dear friends at the Celtic Ray and Motorworks.’ We’re stoked. To be clear, it’s going to be a high quality show: we’ll be fresh as daisies, and we won’t have lost our voices.
Below is a pair of short, highly abridged histories of Saint Patrick’s Day in Savannah and in New York City.
Savannah Georgia is home to some of the most beautiful architecture in the American South. It is also the home of a world-famous art college, the site of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (a classic book and movie), and the home of the oldest Saint Patrick’s Day celebration in the Southeastern United States. The tradition began in 1824, and was started by the Hibernian Society in order to showcase Irish pride among early Irish immigrants. According to the internet, the Hibernian Society was founded in 1812 by forty four men in Savannah, expressly for the purpose of tending to the needs of Irish immigrants. This year’s parade has nearly 300 parading bands, civic organizations, floats and military groups. It is happening on Tuesday morning, with a prompt start at 10:30 AM. We’ll be playing Saturday outside the Wexford, Savannah’s Irish Pub at 1:30 and 5:15 on Sunday. Lots of other great bands will be there like The Mudmen, The Muckers, and Black Thorne Brigade.
New York is still the biggest celebration (Duh). New York City’s Saint Paddy’s Day Parade was actually founded in 1762, before the Declaration of Independence. The first people to walk in the parade were Irish expatriates, rebels and members of the Irish military, which is super interesting. The parade is a procession of more than 100,000 people marching, including members of Irish societies, pipe bands, the New York Police and Fire Departments, and the historic 69th Infantry regiment. According to the internet, the 69th Regiment traces its lineage to 21 Dec 1849. After the failed “Young Ireland” revolt in Ireland in 1848, the locus of Irish revolutionary/republican activity moved to New York. There were three established regiments of Irish soldiers in New York, but they were later consolidated into the 69th. During the American Civil War, the 69th fought for the Union, in 1861 at the battle of Bull Run. The New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade starts at 11:00 AM.
