What’s it like to spend the greenest day on the Emerald Isle? I can tell you one thing: It’s nothing like it is in America.

“Why do all the Americans come to Ireland for St. Paddy’s? Don’t do it! Ye celebrate it so much more in America than we do here!” This was the general reaction I’d get from my Irish roommates when we’d reach the subject of St. Patrick’s Day.  I took it with a grain of salt. I figured I’d have to see for myself how it lived up to every March 17th I’d encountered back home.

To be honest, it wouldn’t be difficult for the Irish to out-do my American St. Patrick’s Days because I never did anything interesting.  No parades, no binge drinking, no outlandish hats or outfits. All I’d ever done to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day was tie a simple green bow in my hair and maybe accompany it with a green t-shirt of some sort if I were feeling particularly spirited.

Other Americans choose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day more boisterously.  There are parades, outrageous outfits with inordinate amounts of green and clovers, and lots of enthusiasm, loudness, and activity.

Although there were parades in both Dublin and Galway, and perhaps even other cities in Ireland as well, from what I noticed, the parades were attended mostly by Americans or foreigners who came to Ireland with the intention of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.

So, what do the Irish do instead? What’s their alternative?

Basically, people in Ireland treat St. Patrick’s Day like they treat every other day: they go drinking at the pubs.  Not the way we might think with chaotic drunkenness, but by sitting and enjoying time with friends and family.

Actually, I remember lots of families, parents with their little ones in the pubs with their friends during the daytime. They go out to socialize and enjoy their day off of work.  That’s another difference – Ireland gets the day off on St. Patrick’s Day.  I sat with my friends at a pub in town drinking pints of Guinness in a crowded but friendly room.  We didn’t need an activity; we had each other (as lame as that sounds, I know, I know).

If there is one rule and one rule only about this holiday, it’s that you spell it the proper Irish way – I quickly learned that it is definitely not St. Patty’s Day, but St. Paddy’s Day.  I still don’t know why.  I’m not sure if there even is a real reason for it, it could very likely be just a nonsensically firm belief.

But as long as you do that, the only real obligation on St. Paddy’s day is to sit and enjoy a pint with your friends.  If you’re able to do that much, you’re grand.

A lot of people actually have the correct perceptions about Ireland: Plenty of drink, friendly people, lots of green and farmland.  But in the same ways, a lot of people have the wrong perceptions in that there is plenty of drink, but maybe not in the way we’d think of it here.  People are friendly, but they’re not afraid to give you a hard time.  There is plenty of green and farmland, but that doesn’t really slow anything down.  It would seem  St. Patrick’s Day should call for a huge celebration in Ireland because that’s the land of its origins.

With all this mind, we can’t expect to celebrate an Irish holiday in Ireland in a very American way, can we? But we do.  We expect there to be plenty of parades and enthusiasm and chaos, lots of activity! In reality, they celebrate their holiday in their way, which is to do nothing out of the ordinary, because every day is a celebration.

Every day the Irish enjoy pints with friends. Every day they make time to be social and value a good conversation, even if it’s only in passing.  The days are worth more so that the holiday feels less forced, less “this is the time to have fun and celebrate.”

No activity is needed when the world around you is enough.  So, don’t listen to my roommates: Go to Ireland for St. Paddy’s Day.  As long as you spell it the right way, that is.

Katie McKenna studied abroad at the National University of Ireland Galway last spring. She can be reached at [email protected].