Why Ireland? Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and the Global Irish Spirit with our Irish Kennedy Partner, By Bob Hoffman, Kennedy Ireland

To all the non-Irish people around the world who are celebrating St. Patricks Day, I say thank you. To all my fellow Irish people, do you sometimes scratch your head and ask yourself why a small island, off a bigger island, off the coast of Europe has the most celebrated national holiday in the world?

I guess most people in the world will allow us Irish to be very proud on St. Patricks Day and we have a lot to be proud of. In 40 years, we have gone from being a poor country to one of the most successful economies in the world and now ranks as the 2nd highest country in the Global Peace Index which includes Social Safety & Security for our people.  We have some problems of course but in general we have created a wonderful place to live and rear our families and by all accounts, we seem to be very good global neighbours. The above photos of a selection of the world’s monuments, bathed in green, would seem to confirm this.

Going back to the headline, Why Ireland? We Irish have always been global travellers but after the Great Famine in 1847 our people fled to the four corners of the globe in massive numbers. We were appreciative of the new start, worked hard, played hard, shared our songs and poetry, acclimatised to the new culture but also kept our Irish culture alive. This and because we have never invaded any other country, has seemed to make us good neighbours. Ireland is famously a militarily neutral country and is proud of being the only nation to have a continuous presence on UN and UN-mandated peace support operations since 1958, with Irish peacekeepers highly respected internationally. So, our military has been all over the world but healing not harming.

So, in summary and I hope I do not come across as patronising. We are in an era of ‘hard men’ leaders (we Irish DO NOT like bullies) and geopolitical tensions. If the UN was to relocate from their New York building to an Irish pub somewhere, the world would be a happier place. So, can everybody be a bit more ‘Irish’ today and celebrate life, song, witty banter and smile at their neighbour. 

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