Watch above: It’s not a holiday here but St. Patrick’s Day continues to gain momentum as a reason to celebrate and don the colour green. Aaron Streck finds out how much business owners have come to rely on the Irish celebration.
SASKATOON – It’s not a holiday here but St. Paddy’s Day continues to gain momentum as a reason to celebrate and don the colour green. Even Irish pubs in Saskatoon become seas of green, like Riderville.
With a long family line of Irish pubs in the province, St. Patrick’s Day pumps through the veins of O’Shea’s Irish Pub’s owners.
“If you own an Irish pub you at least know you’re going to be busy one day a year,” said O’Shea’s co-owner Daniel Ford Beavis.
“Here in Canada especially, we’ve really got in the tradition of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day by going and being Irish and everybody’s Irish for the day.”
Opening just days before St. Patrick’s Day 13 years ago, Beavis knows to gear up for it – one of his busiest days of the year.
“The one thing that people always ask me is they say, ‘do you think St. Patrick’s Day should be a holiday cause we have so many stat holidays?’ and my theory on that is it’s not St. Patrick’s Day that should be the holiday, it’s the day after St. Patrick’s Day that we need off work,” said Beavis.
Watch below: The meaning of St. Patrick’s Day
Other Irish pubs also feel the effects of the day; 13-millions pints of Guinness are expected to be sold worldwide on March 17.
“Once you’re at the maximum it can’t get any busier unfortunately, if we could just stretch the walls that would be wonderful … but we can’t,” said Finns Irish Pub manager Matt Hitchcock.
“They drink more and more … leave sooner and sooner.”
“It’s a bit of a spotlight on Irish culture and lets us get our two cents in,” said Meaghan Haughian, an Irish language teacher.
March 17 is more than green beer and wearing green for Haughian, it’s about the man the day is named after.
“St. Patrick of course was huge in Irish history not only Irish Catholic history but in Irish history in general, he’s the one who brought Christianity to Ireland, he converted many many pagans over into Christianity and I mean even in the language you’ll find references to Patrick,” said Haughian.
READ MORE: St. Patrick’s Day: the history, myths and fun facts
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