Celebrating St. Patrick's Day!

We had a great time celebrating St. Patrick's Day last weekend. There was a 5-day festival held in Dublin to celebrate and so on the Saturday we put on some green and went into Merrion Square to the Big Day Out festival.

We enjoyed the many rides and enjoyed some great views from the top of the 48m high Ferris wheel!

Looking towards the spire on O'Connell Street

Merrion square and Merrion Square park

James' favourite view - the Aviva Stadium, Lansdowne Road

The gardens of Leinster House - the Parliament

We also had a great time on the Cyclone ride and the girls enjoyed the merry-go-round and the big slide.

There were also street performances...

marching bands all the way from Canada.....

green fairy floss (although it doesn't really look green in the photo!)....

and fun and games in the park.

We tried to speak Gaelic at the Irish speaking tent (the girls were more successful than James or I!)

Pia and Ella's favourite activity was making animals and monsters out of food at the kids' food tent.

Below is Ella's funny monster...

and Pia's fox family (we saw a real live fox running around in the backyard behind ours last week and so foxes are now Pia's favourite animal!)

On the Sunday we braved the cold and rain, put on more green and headed into town for the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

 

As this year is the Year of the Gathering in Ireland, the parade began with a People's Parade of people from all over the world visiting Ireland.

 

 

Even St. Patrick himself made an appearance!

 The main Parade began at 12pm and the theme this year was "Great things happen when we get together". Many of the floats had some sort of travel theme in keeping with the Year of the Gathering and the idea of people travelling and gathering together in Ireland. As you can see, though, there were some quite impressive creations, but I'm not quite sure what they were or how they fit the theme! But it was spectacular and fun to watch.

 

 We loved seeing Australia go by as the globe turned around!

 Pia and Ella loved this creature above the most (don't ask me what it is, though!)

So we very much enjoyed our St. Patrick's Day weekend and finished it off with a pint of Guinness (for the adults!) at the local pub with a friend of Ella's from school and her family. A nice way to end a great St. Patrick's Day.