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Comment by nly | Hacker News Reader

Fun Irish fact: pubs in Ireland are closed on St Patrick's Day.

There's also a variety of delicious, regional potato based products that, until very recently, you won't have found anywhere else but in Ireland. The way boxty is made for instance, is crazy to me.

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seems outdated

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/all-pubs-ireland-...

You may be surprised to learn that all the pubs in Ireland used to be closed on St. Patrick's Day, which is now by and large considered a drinking holiday.

Up until the 1970s, Irish law prohibited pubs opening on March 17 as a mark of respect for this religious day. It was feared that leaving the pubs open would be too tempting for some during Lent and would lead to a disrespectful amount of drunkenness on this most solemn day.

Your fun fact is hilarious from an American perspective. It’s the biggest day for bars and pubs in the US and it’s not close.

It’s funny how Irish culture in America seems so different from its motherland counterpart. Same or more so for Italian. No judgements either way. Just interesting how diaspora cultures evolve

Well, just because the pubs are closed it doesn't mean they don't drink.

I'm unsure if it's true, but I've been told one reason racing is popular on St Pats is because the tracks serve alcohol.

This whole thing is nonsense - pubs aren’t closed. And most people aren’t anywhere near a race track on St. Patricks’s Day. Unless they’re in Cheltenham, which is in a different country.

This “fact” isn’t a fact. Pubs aren’t anywhere near closed in Ireland on St. Patrick’s day.

It’s probably the busiest day of the year for them.

So, this was true until the 30's or so.

So it's possible that this was passed down the generations as fact. It's not true any more though.

Only a guess but this would likely have been because St. Patrick’s Day is a “holy day”. People attend church (lots still do although in the last couple of decades it’s declined massively) and closing pubs would be in line with how some other “holy days” are treated. An example of this is Easter in Northern Ireland. There are still some relatively strict licensing laws over the Easter weekend (although these are about to modernise) with pubs shit for large parts of it.

The most obvious difference is that it seems to be called St Patty's Day in the US, for some reason. Nobody in Ireland calls it that.

And people call it St Patrick's day in the US as well.

> Your fun fact is hilarious from an American perspective. It’s the biggest day for bars and pubs in the US and it’s not close.

Must be a regional thing. Its not like that where I live, and a quick search suggests both New Years Eve and Thanksgiving Eve are busier days (which matches my experience).

pubs in Ireland are not closed on St. Patricks day.

This reminds me of that thing where people read the newspaper & say "wow, I can't believe they got $MY_AREA_OF_EXPERTISE so wrong" but then turn the page & take in other stories as if they were gospel truth.

Next time someone tells me a fun fact about another country I shall remember the 'closed pubs' of Ireland on Paddy's Day!

Yeah, I clearly misremembered/mistrusted what my partner (Irish) told me and paid the karma cost :) Oh well.

> "wow, I can't believe they got $MY_AREA_OF_EXPERTISE so wrong"

Gell-Mann amnesia effect

Thanks, that's it — can never remember the name!

We need a name for the effect wherein people will believe that something exists just because someone gave their unsupported theory a catchy name.

Not sure where you got this from, but this is entirely incorrect.

Probably confused it with Good Friday, another big day on the Catholic calendar.

Potato pancakes? Those seem pretty common around the world.

I looked up some recipes and I am not sure I understand what it considered special about them.

It’s a good way to use potato and flour, and makes a nice breakfast fried in butter alongside an egg.

Yes, and no turkeys are consumed at thanksgiving and no music is played at mardi gras.

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