Canadians turn lesser shade of green
Only 3 in 10 plan to celebrate Ireland’s patron saint, and most will stay dry
John Meyer used to be one of those people who left work early on St. Patrick’s Day, hit an Irish pub with friends, queued for a pint of Guinness, then spent the evening shoulder to shoulder with puking revellers. But no longer.
The Toronto man now opts out of the annual occasion, explaining that the pressure to “get wasted” in the name of a day to which he has no ancestral connection made no sense. And a new survey released exclusively to Postmedia suggests most Canadians feel similarly.
Despite the hype, just three in 10 people plan to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on Monday, according to a national Leger poll of more than 1,500 adults. And among the minority intending to mark the occasion, only 39 per cent say they’ll do so with alcohol.
Meyer, a travel book author, said that while he loves the Irish, he forgoes St. Paddy’s for the same reason he doesn’t don a kilt on Robbie Burns Day or wear lederhosen during Oktoberfest.
“I’m a grown- up and can drink whenever I want,” said Meyer, whose latest book is Bulls, Bands and London. “I’d rather drink on a random Wednesday than line up in the cold to wear a stupid green hat and listen to Van Morrison all night, you know?”
Because people of Irish ancestry make up 14 per cent of Canadian society, according to 2011 population data, we can estimate that slightly more than half of St. Patrick’s Day celebrants are cultural interlopers. But as impressive as that combined interest is, a 30.5 per cent participation rate hardly matches marketplace frenzy, which has come to include everything from McDonald’s milkshakes to shamrock Viking hats.
A 2011 Maclean’s editorial even argued that St. Paddy’s should be a national holiday, stating that it “has become this country’s most popular and widely celebrated day for raising a toast, far surpassing New Year’s Eve or Canada Day.” The stats tell another story. In Quebec, for example, just 17.6 per cent of adults intend to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in some way this year. And in Atlantic Canada, where the occasion is a statutory holiday in Newfoundland and Labrador, the share of people marking the occasion is only slightly above the national average: 36.3 per cent.
Ken Wong, a marketing professor at Queen’s University, explained the disconnect between the hype and the reality as an example of retailers jumping on “any excuse to create an event” that motivates spending.
“Things like Shamrock Shakes have become a tradition for some people, no different from Roll Up the Rim,” said Wong. “They’re almost divorced from St. Patrick’s Day except for the timing of occurrence.”
So why are Irish pubs so packed on
I’d rather drink on a random Wednesday than line up in the cold to wear a stupid green hat and listen to Van Morrison all night.
JOHN MEYER
TRAVEL BOOK AUTHOR
March 17? Quite simply, people who do celebrate, celebrate big.
Among the three in 10 Canadians who mark St. Paddy’s, 39 per cent do so with booze — and 55 per cent of those aged 18 to 34. Fifty- six per cent of alcohol- swilling revellers plan to attend a pub event or party Monday, 18 per cent will probably start drinking at work, and 14 per cent are likely to call in sick the next day due to hangover or fatigue.
“For me, St. Patrick’s Day without a Guinness would be like Christmas without a tree,” said Rob McEwan, vice- president of Toronto- based Argyle Communications, which commissioned the survey. “However, as this St. Paddy’s falls on a Monday, I expect pub time will be reduced.”
The survey was conducted online between Feb. 14 and 18 with 1,519 Canadians. A probability sample of that size would yield a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.