Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on Montserrat
In fact, Road Trips Foodies, you can celebrate St. Patrick’s Day for an entire week on the Caribbean island of Montserrat — the only nation in the world outside of Ireland to commemorate March 17 as a national holiday.
Residents and visitors take part in a week of feasts, costumed parades, concerts, cultural exhibitions to commemorate the planned slave uprising that occurred on the island during St. Patrick’s Day in 1768. (The website still shows the 2016 events, but you can extrapolate to this year’s dates; the fest will end March 18.)
Key activities include national exhibitions showcasing the island’s history, art and literature; · a “Catch the Mermaid” island-wide treasure hunt; a Heritage Day Feast, offering samples of local traditional foods, such as bush tea, goat water, and stewed yard fowl.
Local bars and restaurants also celebrate in the more traditional Irish way by serving Guinness and decorating with shamrocks and plenty of green.
The harp and female figure on the flag and official seal of Montserrat are derived from the Irish heraldy and in the southern region of the island, there is even a village named St. Patrick’s (located in the exclusion zone, “no go” due to volcanic destruction).
Goat water, the national dish made of kid or mutton and spiced with cloves and rum, is believed to hail from the original Emerald Isle.
The Irish legacy is present in the folklore, surnames and even the local speech, which is laced with an Irish brogue.
Montserrat is a mountainous island of approximately 39 square miles in the Eastern Caribbean chain of islands.
(Photo courtesy of Visit Montserrat)
