I remember those of us who were at the Tyneside Irish Festival telling Newcastle City Council Arts Dept. years ago that St. Patrick’s Day was the second biggest cultural event after Christmas. They looked slightly askance at the time, but anyone who witnessed the bacchanalia of hooleys all over Toon from the Quayside to Collingwood Street, from the City Centre to the Green Mile of Osborne Road, over the Day, would believe us about the scale of the festivities.
However, it’s not just boozing, rugby shirts and fee-diddley music. It’s certainly not the plastic patronised Paddyfest, where any culture from Bavaria to Ballyhaunis, can be enjoyed lukewarm, rolled in the clarts then sprayed with glitter, as long as you pay for it.
Then again, let’s not be too precious; commercialisation is a consequence of popularity, and those of us who remember darker days when the Troubles and the treatment of them by the media gave us a steep hill to climb before we could even begin to talk about the positives of being Irish.
Our duty as club folk
For us at our deliberately named Tyneside Irish Centre (note not “club”; even though we always call it “The club”), we have a duty to reflect the culture, community, history, and future of the Irish on Tyneside before we even pull the first (of many) pints.
A centre is a community hub, where help and support is guaranteed; a welcome is extended to all, and we mean that and show it with deeds and words. The presence of senior diplomatic, military and civic representatives emphasises this welcome to all and our duty to our community and our region. People like Lucy Winskill, Lord Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear, representing The King, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Veronica Dunn representing our great city with our great friend Carina O’ Brien, Vice Consul of the Irish Northern Consulate probably wouldn’t turn up, (on duty anyway), for karaoke, a boxing booth and a glitter machine.
Our St. Patrick’s Day is different and is shown by the presence of our friend and neighbour the Rev. Mike Hills (Royal Navy), the men of the Northumberland Fusiliers and the Tyneside Scottish at the Remembrance for the Tyneside Irish Brigade of the Northumberland Fusiliers, with the full ceremonial heft of flags, pipes and a bugler at the Eldon Square War Memorial. We see all the uniforms in the Gallowgate Lounge happily mixing before and after the event with families and smiling kids, all dressed in green, all going to show that we’re on a different level to the opportunists milking our culture for their profit.
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What makes us special
That Tyneside is different isn’t difficult to show because, while everywhere is different to everywhere else, the history of the Irish immigration here seems more benign, less fraught with sectarian bigotry and more successful than most. That is a claim made in the seminal 1968 book When Paddy met Geordie by Roger Cooter, and although the new edition if you saw Tyneside celebrate at mhe weekend is probably more like “When Paddy met Sally”, the main thesis still holds.
From the Dark Ages during which Ireland preserved the light of civilisation in Europe, first moving to Iona then Lindisfarne with saints like Patrick himself as born 30 miles away in Birdoswald Fort after the Romans were defeated. Then we have the ABC of Saints from Aidan (Irish), Bede (born in Newcastle), Cuthbert (born in Melrose and lived in Northumberland) – and of course St. Dec Donnelly (Saint to be) the literal child of the Tyneside Irish Centre as his mam and dad ran the place in the 1970s and 80s.
We claim the word “crack” (not craic) and green was the colour for the Labour Party here until 1979 as this region invented a modern decent-ish industrial society that quite literally changed and lit the world, and saw mass immigration to Tyneside that kept the preservation of identity and yet without significant sectarian hostility. I can demonstrate that easily; listen to Tyneside’s anthem The Blaydon Races – “They called on me to sing a song so I gave them ‘Paddy Fagan’, I danced a jig and I swung me twig, the day I went to Blaydon.” To be fair the celebrations in 1862 sound very similar to swirling parades of happy boozers in 2024.
How the day went – or so I think
As someone who had one pint (it was Guinness in The Gallowgate at 1.45pm and it was excellent), I’m possibly as able as anyone to report on the good tidings of the day. The Irish Centre performed admirably, and to misquote the current NUFC chant starting “Kraft and Dummett at the back, Tino on the overlap”, we add some new lyrics – “Pat and Paul on the door, Donna working on three Floors, TC playing for 10 more years, Tyneside Irish on the beers.” So the queue outside started at 11am, the session started at noon in the bar then moved, very successfully to the resounding hard floor of the Gallowgate where the music went on until 8pm.
TC played for the diplomatic corps, old soldiers and kids from 2-4pm then went to see the thousands of green-shirted 20-somethings doing the Osborne Road hooley from 5-7pm, once they’d queued for half an hour to get in, then came back to finish the night with “The Soldiers Song” to an uproarious welcome in the bar from the many still survived from the event’s tribulations. The Concert Room saw Dermot Hegarty, Liam Turner and Audio O’City play the music that’s been keeping people inspired, contented, smiling and singing along for generations from noon to closing time.
And then we walked out into the night to find transport home and the unwelcome prospect of Monday morning.
Saintly holidays for all
A recent Labour Party manifesto introduced the prospect of a bank holiday for all the days for St. David, St. Patrick, St. George and St. Andrew. I think that is a fine plan and for those of us who wonder why Northern Ireland benefits from both St. Patrick and The 12th as public holidays while some of us complain it might provide an opportunity for some community cohesion.
There are those who wonder why St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated as it is. The answer is that it’s a day of jollity and boozing, family, community, dressing up and an abandonment of rules (including Lent, for even the practice of self-deprivation is abandoned); it’s a day of buying drinks for all, where Yeats’ wish that a stranger is just a friend that you haven’t met literally comes true. The only other situation that I’ve seen this kind of spirit is on Newcastle United away trips.
The feast is family and friends
Fundamentally, even though it’s supposed to be “a feast” and people will say, “Happy Feast Day” to you, I’ve never seen anything resembling a feast, or anything much at all to eat, apart from the sandwiches we give to the old soldiers. If someone asked me about what to do on St. George’s Day, it might be eating a big roast dinner, or a chicken vindaloo, with an English ale or as likely a Japanese lager involved. But St. Patrick, bless him, doesn’t seem to do food. He’s a boozer is St. Patrick, and his day has all the boozer’s virtues and vices.
We need to be careful with the former and vigilant to the latter but whatever we do, the day will roll on gathering momentum as Ireland becomes more important economically, more influential diplomatically and unchallengeable in soft power as its euros are more welcome than ever on Tyneside from tourists, students and investors seeking trade. That welcome to all may yet pay more dividends to all.
Finally, I’m writing this on St. Cuthbert’s Day, 20 March, a man whose heroic life of virtue and struggle is often overlooked as the region from which he came is similarly mistreated. I’m not for one second advocating another day like Patrick’s but maybe a regional day, where those of us who’ve maybe overdone it on the 17th can stretch some flexitime or similar to allow for a period of recovery, could be a worthwhile demand. If the UK applies to the European Union for re-admission, may our friends in Dublin put that on the agenda, as well as the return of Rockall to the Republic?
Happy Feast Day to you all.
