If you love things Latin, then you’ve got to be wild about St. Patrick’s Day.
Latin? you say. Maybe you think I mean Latin as in Roman Catholic Church Latin, but what I’m getting at is Latin as in, well, Ricky Martin. (Martin? Think about that one!)
In other words, Friday’s festivities — with all their green suds, carefree celebrations and brawny boasting — might well be called La Pachanga (from the Gaelic parteeagh) de San Patricio.
Oh, sure, the Irish claim St. Pat (although he was really a Roman Briton named Succat, which — if you ask me — sounds an awful lot like Suarez).
That’s okay — the Irish, in their heart of hearts, know they’re an accident of geography. If the world were just, the Irish wouldn’t be floating off Europe, contending with all those British stiff upper lips. Instead, they’d be cruising the Caribbean, enjoying a frothy tall one and dancing up a storm with their Latin brethren. Those high-stepping Irish jigs, quite frankly, look pretty darn similar to the native dances in Guatemala and other Central American countries.
And there’s good reason for that: The Irish, you see, are really Latins.
How else to explain their brio? Their soulfulness? Their brashness? Their outrageous storytelling? Their ability to turn even a wake into a celebration of life? Drop any O’Malley into a fiesta, any Garcia into an Irish wedding, and they fit right in. Indeed, back in medieval times, there was plenty of consorting between the Irish and the inhabitants of Galicia in the northwestern corner of Spain. Enough that, not only did the Irish become Latin but the Galicians became a little Irish in return. So much so that theydeveloped their own native bagpipe (a little smaller, a little higher pitched).
Today, musical groups like Milladoiro and Celtas Cortos play a wild mix of Spanish and Celtic musics, rousing and sad at the same time, their themes — resistance, autonomy, love of nature, nostalgia — much more Irish than Iberian.
In fact, Irish music made such an impression on the Iberian peninsula that you have to wonder if the Irish sense of fado — that all-purpose Gaelic term for times gone by — isn’t what gave its name to Portugal’s fado — a bluesy musical style perfectly Irish in spirit, lamenting loss and heartbreak and the need to stumble on.
What is Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” but one big manana? And is Oscar Wilde’s penchant for sunflowers — the favorite flora of the Virgin of Charity, Cuba’s patron saint — a mere coincidence?
You think deposed Mexican president Carlos Salinas picked exile in Ireland randomly? It was that or Cuba, and just shop and compare: Both are islands (all right, Ireland shares its island, but it’s bigger — it can be magnanimous), both have been historically irritated by a larger world power that thinks it can do whatever it wants with it, both are very green but agriculturally sort of resistant, and both, well — how to put this politely? — are downright loud and rowdy, rascally and revolutionary.
Perhaps most significantly, both the Irish and Latins — especially the Caribbean Latins — are tagged as nominally Christian but have a tendency to mix it up with their pagan pasts. It might help explain why San Patricio’s day is celebrated with such pagan-borrowed symbols as leprechauns and magic shamrocks, not to mention lots of beer. Feels a whole lot like the Feast of Santa Barbara, usually enjoyed by calling on impish spirits, magic and rum.
So, Friday, feel free to have a little green tequila instead of beer if you’d like. It’s just fine. Just hoist up your glass and proudly declare: “Erin go bragh, amigo!”
Here are a few places well suited for such celebrations:
Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace St., 773-463-6808. The granddaddy of Irish clubs here, the Abbey Pub is especially fun on Sundays, when everybody’s relaxed and nobody’s on dates.
Club 720, 720 N. Wells St., 312-397-0600. Not specifically Irish, but Club 720 is as multicultural as it gets, and management plans an outrageous St. Pat’s Day bash.
El Jardin’s Fiesta Cantina, 3407 N. Clark St., 773-327-4646. The San Patricio Battalion — a real life regiment of Irish volunteers during the Mexican civil war — were so brave and noble that even Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas honored them in a St. Pat’s Day message a few years back. Come celebrate Irish-Mexican solidarity with reel rhythm at this North Side bar.
Fado, 100 W. Grand Ave., 312-836-0066. A veritable Irish museum, more authentic than Van Morrison.
Irish Wolfhound, 3734 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-736-1010. If Brendan Behan were alive, this would be his Chicago watering spot. And it’s right in Logan Square, in case you get the itch to salsa later.
