Top 10 St. Patrick’s Day/Irish things you probably didn’t know.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, piss-tanks. Before you go filling your guts with green beer, fill your head with knowledge!

1. More vomit is produced on St. Paddy’s Day than any other day of the year.
2. Boston hosts the largest, and therefore worst, St. Paddy’s Day celebration in the world.
3. St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland in a sweet 1972 Ford Econoline.
4. McD’s Shamrock Shakes don’t taste like mint. They taste like shit.
5. Leprechauns are so named ‘cause they have leprosy.
6. Kissing the Blarney Stone is said to endow the kisser with the gift of the gab. “The gab” is Irish slang for “cold sores”.
7. Corned beef and cabbage is a great pre-drinking meal. It will also ensure that your St. Paddy’s day vomit is of a thick, creamy consistency.
8. Jameson’s whiskey is great in cocktails and other breakfast foods.
9. The British government’s Weights and Measures Department has officially classified (ex-Pogues front man) Shane MacGowan’s urine as “overproof”.
10. This plucky nation has endured many dark times in its history - two famines, “the troubles”, and Enya.

10 Irish Facts You Probably Didn’t Know*:

• To appeal to varying tastes around the world, Guinness is actually produced in 17 different flavours including wintergreen, roast chicken, and baking soda.
• The experience of the Irish émigré  can be summed up in three words: “Far and Away”. The aforementioned movie can be summed up in just two words: shit sandwich.
• Contrary to popular belief, diminutive actor Tom Cruise is not a leprechaun. He can, however, lead you to a giant fucking pot of Scientology money.
• Corned beef and cabbage is a great pre-drinking meal. It will also ensure that your St. Paddy’s day vomit is of a thick, creamy consistency.
• Kissing the Blarney Stone is said to endow the kisser with the gift of the gab. “The gab” is Irish slang for “cold sores”.
• The potato was brought to Ireland from Peru by the infamous Spanish conquistador, Frito Lay.
• It’s a shame Bono won’t shut his fucking cake hole.
• Jameson’s whiskey is great in cocktails and other breakfast foods.
• The Kennedy family may be of Irish descent, but their giant, scary teeth were cast in the fires of Mordor. In fact, they can gnaw clean through a telephone pole in 4 minutes flat.
• The British government’s Weights and Measures Department has officially classified (ex-Pogues front man) Shane MacGowan’s urine as “overproof”.

* ‘cause they’re all mostly a total load of blarney. Except that thing about Bono.

Booze Facts Originating From Ireland:

• Though Ireland is better known for stout, 63% of the beer sold in the country is lager. Stout makes up 32% of the market, with ale the remaining 5%.
• The original Guinness Brewery in Dublin has a 9,000 year lease on its property, at a perpetual rate of 45 Irish pounds per year.
• On any given day 5.5 million pints of Guinness are consumed around the world.
• On St. Patrick’s Day, that number more than doubles to 13 million pints.
• Guinness Beer Brewery founded est.1759.
• James Joyce once called Guinness stout “the wine of Ireland.”
• One traditional Irish cure for a hangover was to be buried up to the neck in moist river sand.
• Even Saint Patrick liked a tipple. It was once popular in Ireland to pin sprigs of shamrocks on your coat on Saint Patrick’s Day in remembrance of his using shamrock leaves to illustrate the idea of the holy trinity. At the end of the day, one would “drown the shamrock” by putting a few shamrocks into a glass and covering them with whiskey.
• Baileys Irish Cream, which was launched in Ireland in the early seventies, is now the most popular liqueur in the world.
• Jameson Irish Whiskey was established in 1780 when John Jameson established the Bow Street Distillery in Dublin.
• By the early 1800s, the distillery was producing one million gallons (3,785,412 litres) of whiskey per year and had grown to be the largest in the world.
• With annual sales of over 31 million bottles, Jameson is by far the best selling Irish whiskey in the world.

A joke at the expense of the Irish:

An Englishman, a Scott, and an Irishman walked into a pub.
Each ordered a pint of beer and a fly landed in each one’s beer.
The Englishman, turning up his nose, pushed his beer away and asked for another one.
The Scott picked the fly out, shrugged, and went about drinking his beer.
The Irishman pinched the fly between his fingers and yelled “SPIT IT OUT! SPIT IT OUT!”

Erin Go Bragh!

St. Patrick’s Day In Vancouver: The Obvious

In case you weren’t aware, this years Vancouver St. Patrick’s Day Parade has been cancelled for 2010. The organizers say the Vancouver 2010 Paralympics was the reason for the cancellation. Whatever, don’t hold it against the games.  There will still be drunken revelry taking place all over the city. Shamrocks and shenanigans will proceed.

On March 17th all of the (obvious) pubs listed below will feature some form of entertainment that includes most of the prerequisite stereotypical St. Patrick’s Day festivities such as live music, Irish dancers, Celtic folk singers, traditional Irish menu items and several versions of ‘the drink’. You’ll be dancing an Irish jig and puking green beer before you know it.

In no particular order:

• The Blarney Stone - http://blarneystone.ca/
• Doolin’s Irish Pub - http://www.doolins.ca/
• Lamplighter Public House - http://www.thelamplighter.ca/
• The Irish Heather - http://irishheather.com/
• Ceili’s Irish Pub & Restaurant - http://www.ceilis.com/
• The Morrissey - http://www.morrisseypub.com/
• The Wolf and Hound - http://wolfandhound.ca/
• Dentry’s Irish Grill - http://www.dentrys.com/
• Johnnie Fox’s Irish Snug - http://www.johnniefox.ca
• The Lennox - Granville & Robson (gasp, no website?)

One word of caution, the aforementioned locales will be insanely busy (because they’re the obvious ones everyone thinks of … even us) so we suggest you plan ahead if attendance is important to you. Better yet, on St. Patrick’s Day everyone is a little bit Irish and the same goes for pubs and bars. You can’t swing a shillelagh without hitting a bar dressed in Irish drag so you’re bound to find green beer and short tartan skirts on some great lasses at any pub.

Erin Go Bragh!