Is it time to leave St Patrick’s Day to America and find an authentic Irish holiday?

RP O’Donnell left America to make West Cork home. As he marks another Patrick’s Day here, he’s convinced we should leave the parades to the diaspora.

I first came to Ireland 10 years ago. I had never met an Irish person before. Like the rest of the Americans with me, I was expecting blushing milkmaids in woollen jumpers, and men who all looked like the Healy-Raes. But then we went to Penneys.