St Patrick's Day comes here a bit like Christmas at home. There's no danger it will catch you by surprise. The invitations, and programmes, and notices of marches and dinners start to flow early. Indeed, in truth, St Patrick's Day is a misnomer, it's a season.
Take New York. Last weekend there were six parades, no less. And one in Baltimore. Alexandria, in Virginia, got in early too. Tomorrow Washington DC and a few others have their own. And we've still a week to go to the Grand Daddy of them all in the Big Apple, of which more anon.
And the sign that the season is upon us is marked, like the first leaves of autumn, by an ever-growing stream of Irish and Irish-American politicians traipsing through the halls of Capitol Hill to the State Department, and up to the White House for the more privileged. David Trimble was the first leaf this year, then Brian Cowen. This week there was also Gregory Campbell of the DUP, although he says he's not here on the usual circuit but looking at road funding models. Among the local petitioners were the Irish-American Unity Conference.
Next week, the Taoiseach and six ministers from the North. And Sinn Fein is bringing over three leaders to spread themselves around a bit, although Martin McGuinness's willingness to address the all-male Clover Club in Boston has raised a few eyebrows in the sisterhood.
Musically, all tastes are catered for, with the Clancy Brothers, the Chieftains, a "Missa Celtica" from the Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra, John Feely on the classical guitar, Danu, Brendan Mulvihill, Mark Forrest, the tenor, Maura O'Connell and Mary Black - and that's Washington alone.
The party thrown on Wednesday by the Republican Irish-American members of Congress - five senators and 26 members of the House - will have an added fizz to it this year given the recapturing of the White House. And on Thursday anyone who is anyone will want to be seen with Bertie at the American Ireland Fund dinner. Earlier a more select group will gather for the traditional Speaker's lunch on the Hill.
The real problem for those of us in the inner loop - those select few with invitations to the White House reception on Friday - is how we also make the overlapping British embassy lunch. Not to mention to find the time to write the story up for you, gentle readers, between pints of green beer. And then it's off to the Irish Embassy for more unsaintly celebrations.
But if it's sweetness and light in Washington, the same can not be said of New York, where the long-running row about the nature of the parade has taken a new twist. The prohibition on gay groups marching under their own banners stands, firmly protected by the courts, but has led to boycotts by liberal politicians and continuing criticism in the Irish-American press. (Hillary, who took part last year, feels she should march with supporters upstate this year.)
Now the parade committee has retaliated by denying the Irish Echo and Irish Voice advance access to the "line of march", the listing of the order in which groups will march. It is the sort of public information which the two papers have been happy to publish in the past as a service. Now the committee has not only denied access to the list to the two papers, promising it to the New York Post instead, but has allegedly sworn all participants to secrecy.
John Dunleavy, the parade chairman, makes no bones about it. "The parade by our members is by nature a conservative operation. The fact is it honours St Patrick, is religious and Catholic," he says. "But the news media in New York is very liberal and left-wing. They got the line of march and continued to thump the heck out of the parade." He doesn't mind controversy, arguing that it is good for publicity, and insists that gays are welcome to come and march under their respective county banners.
Ray O'Hanlon of the Echo says they'll publish the line of march anyway, putting it together from contacts with participants. He finds the "hedgehog-like" attitude to the parade committee to criticism a strange throwback to days when the Irish community had to fight its corner against strong prejudice. Times have changed but the committee seems unable to do so, he argues.
Elected by 186 affiliated groups of Ancient Order of Hibernian (AOH) clubs, Emerald societies in such jobs as the police and sanitation services, schools, and county associations, the parade committee has become a private corporation and a law unto itself. That has led to tensions with the national leadership of the AOH - no liberals they - and questions in the wider community about the nature of the parade. Are the likely two million out on the streets of Manhattan next weekend really commemorating St Patrick? Is it just a religious parade or has it become a broader celebration of Irish identity in all its manifestations?
Niall O'Dowd of the Irish Voice says that it is sensitivity to such questions about their legitimacy rather than the specifics of the gay rights row that makes the committee ultra-sensitive to criticism.
The row will go on, but at least we are celebrating . . .
