It started at 9 pm. I only remember that part because we’d run out of wine and the grocery stores stop selling it at 9. So my wife and I headed up to a local Irish bar. ‘Just for one,’ we said. We say it every time, and, miraculously, every time we say it we believe it. We are fools.

Irish bars in New Zealand are very much like Irish bars in America. You may not believe me, but it is true. It is like any other bar, but with old Guinness adverts plastered over the walls. And once a year they make a killing thanks to saintly intercession.

This was that not that day. And yet, they had begun St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday night. And starting the sesh early is a very Irish thing to do.

There was a band, a quite capable duo, who professed themselves that they didn’t know much Irish music. Thus, we were treated to a medley of pop hits – Hotel California, Wonderwall, you get the idea – while making friends with some retired Canadians on a six-week cruise to Sweden the long way around. It is a hobby of my wife and I to only associate with the retired. We don’t do it intentionally: it just keeps happening. I think I offered to join the Canadian Army at some point in the conversation, because we seem to have arrived at one of those uncomfortable moments of history where something must happen. Anyway, they didn’t think it would be necessary, and besides the army won’t take me for a host of issues. Also, I believe the penalty for treason is death.

Back to the band: they announced they would play an Irish song. Excellent! I’d been waiting. ‘Come out, ye black and tans!’ I cried. I was, at this point, a little excitable. ‘Come out, ye black and tans!’

They ignored my cries. The bastards. I flagged down the bartender for another round. The band began their Irish tune. It was an Adele song.

This was a very shaking development, and I was soon to learn that distinction between Celt and Sassenach is not widely known in this fair country.

Part 2 – The Morning

Sunday began slowly. It started as a good slowly, and we took our time to make sure we were alive, and more importantly, that it was worth being alive, and even more importantly – as the recollections came – the weight of the world pressed upon us and we slithered out of bed filled with that shame peculiar to having had a good time the night before.

Then came the sound. Bagpipes. Not the Irish bagpipe, or Uilleann pipe as it is called, played with the elbow while seated. No. The Scottish bagpipe. The sound grew louder, and we realized it was marching down Queen Street, just outside our room. At this point, we were in the middle of making coffee and mostly unclothed. We also had forgotten St. Patrick’s Day was on Monday. And anyway, it was Sunday. Even more, these were Scottish bagpipes! What in hell could induce this menagerie of inaccuracies?

We clothed ourselves with rapidity and ran to the elevator. We carried our coffee cups with us, as we had no other choice. My wife became very excitable, slinging coffee about on the floor and saying ‘oh shoot! Oh shoot!’ every time. On the elevator was an old British lady.

‘What the devil are they doing out there?’ she inquired.

‘We think – ,’ I began.

‘It’s a parade!’ my wife proclaimed gleefully. She slung coffee about the elevator. ‘Oh shoot!’

‘St. Patrick’s Day,’ I offered.

‘Why would they have bagpipes for St. Patrick’s day?’ the lady asked, concerned.

‘Perhaps it’s more of a Pan-Gaelic thing for them,’ I said.

‘Hmm,’ she said, in that delightful way the English have of expressing disapproval without words.

Liquid splashed my foot.

‘Oh shoot!’

As an aside, an Englishman once told me the Atlantic ocean was like the river Lethe and this explained American’s strange conception of history (which began, as we all know, in 1776, the Tuesday after Christ’s resurrection, and a few weeks after the events of the Book of Genesis.) Coming from the West Coast, where history dates from about 1965, I conjectured that the Mississippi river was another river Lethe, and the Colorado river yet another. Perhaps the Pacific Ocean is yet another – and I am almost prepared to believe all bodies of water are Lethean in nature. I digress.

We sprinted to the door of the hotel – ‘Oh shoot! Oh shoot!’ – and made it outside. This was, in fact, the Auckland St. Patrick’s Day parade. And my god, what a spectacle. The bagpipes had passed, and a bluesy, New Orleans kind of brass band was coming down the road. Sure. Why not? Then we had this:

If you’re wondering what the hell that uncanny valley caricature of human existence is, that’s Mr. 4 square. See, it’s right on his shirt. Who is Mr. 4 square? I’ll tell you. He is the mascot for a large chain of grocery stores in New Zealand. Yes.

Then we had bands, and fiddlers in the back of pickup trucks, dancers, dancers, dancers, people on stilts and unicycles, all your usual riff-raff. A local contractor drove by, Cotton-Eyed Joe blasting from the interior of his truck. But that was only a mild strangenesss. Then there was this:

Yes, that is a leprechaun on a moped. Indeed. But it paled in comparison to what was to come, the grand finale of the parade:

Yes, that is St. Patrick. Yes, he is doing sick stick flips. What you cannot hear is the truck blasting U2’s Beautiful Day. This may be the greatest homage to Ireland from outside Ireland since Ulysses. The Patron Saint of the Emerald Isle flipping his crosier around like Gandalf at a rave, blasting U2. The only improvement would have been a gang of leprechauns in his wake tossing out potatoes to bystanders before planting a few bin bombs, but regulations must have prohibited it. Despite that, New Zealand really brought it.

After the parade we wandered down to the quay with our empty coffee cups to find a folk band – this one actually played Irish music – and more dancers. The only perversion on the quay was a stand selling non-alcoholic Guinness. What in the Protestant hell is an N/A Guinness? Anyway. Overall, I recommend the festivities.

We took a long walk afterward and passed by the same pub it had all begun in, so many hours ago. There was a guitar player in there now, playing Ed Sheeran. I remembered then that St. Patrick was, in fact, a Romano-Briton. Perhaps it was proper to play some English songs. Perhaps they were on to something. Maybe they were smarter than me. I turned to my wife.

‘Stop in for one?’ I asked.

‘Just for one,’ she said.