WASHINGTON — For one Irish pub in Tysons, Virginia, St. Patrick’s Day will be its busiest day of the year, as folks dressed in green come for corned beef and cabbage, and wash it all down with a pint of Guinness.
“It’s great to see the joy that comes into people’s faces when they start off in the morning by saying ‘top of the mornin’ to you,’” said Paddy Barry’s Irish Pub owner Brendan Barry in a thick Irish accent.
Barry, who is a native of Ireland, said it was a big shock to see how the holiday was celebrated when he first came to America. “When I moved here first, I couldn’t believe how you really go overboard in a way,” he said.
He added that there are some differences between how it’s celebrated in the U.S. compared to Ireland.
Starting with the food, he said in Ireland, you wouldn’t have corned beef and cabbage for dinner on St. Paddy’s — it would be bacon and cabbage.
“When the Irish came to New York, they couldn’t get bacon,” and Barry said they had to improvise. The Reuben sandwich is also something he said he never experienced until he moved to the U.S.
At his pub, a lot of preparation goes into the day, he said, and extra staff will be on hand for what will end up being their busiest day, weekend and, eventually, month of the year. The day starts at 7 a.m. with a traditional event known as Kegs and Eggs, which is also something that’s not done back home, Barry admitted.
In Ireland, Barry said St. Patrick’s Day would begin at church, then families would take in a parade, have dinner, only have one or two drinks, then they would listen to music.
Another thing done more in the U.S. than in Ireland is taking shots of Jameson whiskey. “There is no one in Ireland, which I knew in my circle, who would drink Jameson raw,” Barry said.
He said here in America, at the pub, they’ll sell six times the amount of Guinness beer and Jameson whiskey shots on St. Paddy’s Day than they do on a normal night.
Even with the differences, Barry said he enjoys the fun Americans have with the holiday as everyone looks to be Irish for one day. “For a small country that’s half the size of Virginia, I feel very proud that people can correspond to Ireland and want to be Irish,” he said.
