You’ve got your Irish and you’ve got your Italians, by which I mean Sicilians.  After the Creoles left the French Quarter, the Sicilians moved in.  The people uptown called the Quarter “Little Palermo.”  The Irish lived in the Irish Channel.

The best way to move about New Orleans is by muscle memory, leafing through onion skins as we go.  St. Patrick’s Day is March 17th.  St. Joseph’s Day is March 19th, immediately followed by St. Joseph Night.  Every New Orleans story has to start at the beginning.

Do you live in America?

You know St. Patrick’s Day.  You wear green and you drink green beer.  Everybody wears green that day.  It’s fine.  They pretend to be Irish.

Nobody in New Orleans pretends to be Irish.  That would be like pretending to be Black.  Once a New Orleanian, always a New Orleanian.  There’s no going back.  

Outside of Irish bars, I don’t know anyone who identifies as being Irish.  It’s not like being queer.  People have fun on St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans as much as anywhere else, I suppose.  There is a parade where people throw cabbages to take home for dinner.  They also throw carrots, sometimes potatoes or spice packs, anything that goes into a stereotyped Irish supper except the corned beef.

Corned beef is pickled, like an Irishman is.  It won’t spoil, the same way vegetables won’t.  

Aren’t all St. Patrick’s parades like this?

W’re at Parasol’s.  It’s alright.  It’s got Irish beer.  There are no Irish pubs in New Orleans.  Even in a city of smoke and mirrors, the genuine is preferred over the ersatz.