Everybody’s a little bit Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, as the old saying goes, so here at the lively Retreat at Mountain Brook apartment community in Birmingham, Alabama, we are already picking out what green to wear Thursday, March 17!
If you’re in the mood to go out and have a good time on St. Patrick’s Day this year but can’t quite make it across the pond, the Magic City does not disappoint when it comes to options. The Retreat at Mountain Brook Idea Specialists™ have scoped out the scene, and have a few recs for you!
Get Out & Have Some Fun
First and foremost of those ideas is Birmingham’s 38th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which will take place this year on Saturday, March 19, in Five Points South. Organized by the Five Points Alliance and the Birmingham Irish Cultural Society, the parade will be from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. If you don’t already have plans to attend with family and friends (including your good doggo, you know how pet-friendly this city and The Retreat at Mountain Brook are), then maybe you’ll want to make the scene at The Hive’s Lucky Saturday Party on their roof!
Beer Run
And of course it wouldn’t be Birmingham without a road race to mark the occasion! If that’s your thing, make plans to take part in the Tour de Brewers XVII St. Patrick’s Day Edition—a roughly 13K’ish informal charity run/ride/brewery crawl supporting The Dannon Project that combines the “fun” of a fun run with the real fun of tasting great Birmingham local brews. (The Dannon Project provides services to promote permanent employment, holistic health, and stable families amongst poor and at-risk communities.) TdB, as it’s known, will take place this year on Saturday, March 12.
For A Good Cause
Finally, you really can’t go wrong if you choose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by helping to raise funds for Kid One Transport at the 42nd Annual Birmingham Irish Cultural Society St. Patrick’s Dinner Celebration. It also will take place on Saturday, March 12, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Inverness Country Club. (Founded in 1997, Kid One’s mission is transport children and expectant mothers to necessary health care services.)
Comfort Food
Prefer to stay in the luxurious and cozy comfort of home? Us, too, sometimes! If that’s what we decide to do this year, we’ll still mark the holiday, just with homemade corned beef sandwiches—there’s a good recipe for them in this Martha Stewart slideshow about St. Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage recipes.
The Man, The Myth, The Legend
Just in case you didn’t know, St. Patrick’s Day marks the death of Ireland’s fifth-century patron saint, who, according to folklore, introduced Christianity to the Irish and banished snakes from the island. Perhaps the most well-known legend of St. Patrick is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, & Holy Spirit) using the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock. “Paddy’s Day,” as it’s known there, began as and still is a religious holiday during the Lenten season, but not in the way it once was; beer company campaigns transformed it from a church-going holiday to a pint-raising one in the 1980s.
Sláinte!
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