Milking the parade

It didn’t take long for the rot to set in. Berlin’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade was a great success in 2011. A rag-tag bunch of green-clad revelers set off on a jaunt through Görlitzer Park. It was everything the parade should be – fun, free, a celebration of being Irish.
It was already a much bigger affair one year later, but still a success, I reckon, despite a much shorter parade route. The yearly walk must have been too strenuous for some.
But the money-makers were paying attention. Last year’s was already a corporate affair, with revelers being corralled into a beer garden so they could spend their cash there rather than giving it to local Spätis, and where Germans were blasted with Irishness and tourism advertisements in the hope they’d give even more.
“The Gathering” as it was aptly called by some genius in government gathered €170 million in tourism revenue altogether. No doubt some could be attributed to that beer garden in Kreuzberg.

Bad enough they’re celebrating on the wrong day, but now they’re charging admission! Céad mile fáilte, give me your €2. I’m sure the drinks and food won’t be free, either.
In a way, it’s typically Irish. See a way of making money and then exploit its full potential. Who said the Celtic Tiger was dead and gone?
They fucked it up. Poor Paddy would be turning in his grave.
Sure isn't it the same in Ireland? St Patrick's week long festival, sponsored by Diagio companies and what have ya. Feckin funfairs and other money making malarkey. Sure they're only trying to make a few bob, and who'd begrudge them that? Who the fuck is St Patrick anyway and what's he got to do with Irishness? That's what I'd like to know.
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