The Irish have earned the right to celebrate

It is hard to think of another country that has so very successfully turned its national day, the celebration of its national saint’s birthday — one of them anyway — into such slick marketing and political opportunities.

All around the world tomorrow, on St Patty’s Day as some of our American cousins insist on calling it, the wearing o’ the green will be used as an excuse to celebrate Irishness, Irish culture, and Irish ancestry, no matter how diluted.