St Patricks Day. Getting better, but more work to do…
St Patrick’s Day in Belfast used to have a reputation for being a damp squib. Festivities were normally confined to the West; even then, the parades were small affairs. I can’t remember when parades first started entering the city centre—maybe in the late 1990s or early naughties? There was the usual Unionist wailing and gnashing of teeth about ‘Republican hoards taking over the city centre’, but after a few years, things settled down. But it was never the most family-friendly …