Best seats at St Pat’s pay parade out of reach for most of us
IS it just me or is the idea of paying €250 to sit in a stand to watch the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin a bit mad?
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good St Patrick’s Day Parade, even if it’s bucketing down and the marching bands and the crowds watching them are in danger of either drowning or succumbing to hypothermia.
But between the cost of doing anything in Dublin, hotels, food, drink and the prospect of having to pay to get a decent view of the parade, you’d have to be some sort of eccentric millionaire to even think of hitting the capital on March 17.
Let’s say you can find a hotel room, you could be looking at €500 or upwards for a decent spot, throw in a couple of parade tickets, a meal and drinks for two and you’re not going to get much change out of €2,000.
For that kind of money, you could fly off to New York for the weekend.
And if you’ve never seen the Big Apple on St Paddy’s Weekend, with the massed bands thundering down 5th Avenue, you really haven’t seen the most awe-inspiring sight of Irishness anywhere on the planet.
Seriously, there are few things as terrifying as the pipes and drums of the NYPD Emerald Society bouncing off St Patrick’s Cathedral on 50th Street – it would put the fear of God into you.
There’s something a little sad about limiting the best seats for our biggest national celebration to those who can afford it (and on O’connell Street, you’re talking a grand for a family of four).
But that’s increasingly the way of it in Ireland, with lots of folks priced out of big sporting and cultural events, concerts and even parts of the city where you’d need a second mortgage to get a bite to eat or a few drinks.
Those who can afford it get the VIP treatment. Everybody else, even people who live in or around the places where the party happens, are left outside the gate.
The experiences we all could have not so long ago, where working men could (for instance) bring a gang of kids to a big GAA or soccer match, are now beyond the reach of many.
The days of being able to get the best views of the St Patrick’s Day parade simply by showing up outside the GPO early are gone.
Dublin is increasingly becoming a city where you need to have big bucks to fully enjoy even “public” events.
It’s sad and it’s not what St Patrick’s Day should be about.