by Layla Bellows
Valentine’s Day is barely behind us, but my thoughts already have turned to a decidedly jollier holiday: St. Patrick’s Day. New York, Boston and Chicago are the best known destinations for the day of all things green, but I’d rather head somewhere off the beaten track for an experience unlike any other.
New London, Wisc., begins its weeklong
St. Patrick’s Day celebration when members of its Shamrock Club dress like leprechauns and change all the town’s signs to New Dublin. Corned beef and cabbage, of course, pop up at restaurants; Celtic music, a traditional Irish Wake and an Irish Ceili take over the town during the week, and the closing weekend is marked by — what else — an enormous parade.
A trip to Dublin, Ireland, might be the ultimate St. Patrick’s Day trip, but the obvious substitution is a trip to one of the United States’ many small towns named Dublin. The smart money is on
Dublin, Ohio, a 200-year-old suburb of Columbus. Its annual parade draws about 20,000 people and ends at the community’s historic district, where you’ll find plenty of Irish pubs and Celtic souveniers.
Of course, my lifelong love of all things kitsch means I must (very soon, in fact) visit Hot Springs, Ark., to see its self-described
world’s shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade. It includes Irish belly dancers and Elvis lookalikes from the Irish Order of Elvi. Need I say more?