Thursday was my last St. Patrick's Day. From now on, I'm boycotting the annual celebration of all things Oirish. Next March 17th, no matter where I may be in the world, I will be defiantly (and uncharcteristically) sober. Anyone foolish enough to wish me a happy Paddy's Day will be met by a terse "bah, humbug!"
For me, this won't be much of a sacrifice. When I was a kid, St. Patrick's Day wasn't that big a deal, except on the rare occasions when one of my school's sports teams made it to the local final. March 17ths of yore were not big occasions.
This started to change in the mid-nineties when brewing companies really started to push for day long displays of alcoholism from anyone with even the most tenuous connection to the Emerald Isle.
I must confess that, while I'm fond of the occasional glass of port myself, this festival of excess has always left me cold. Bars were always so packed on Paddy's day that you spent half the night queueing at the bar or the toilet. In my university days, it was traditional for the bingeing to be followed by a good old-fashioned riot.
In spite of all this, I went along half-heartedly with the celebration of the man who cursed my island with Christianity and drove off all the interesting wildlife.
But no longer, and I have Martin McGuinness to thank for pushing me over the edge. To see the MP for Mid-Ulster blatantly trying to intimidate the McCartney family ahead of their St. Patrick's Day trip to the US was the final straw. For me this cast a shadow over the whole festival. There is little to be proud of about Ireland at the moment.
The annual St. Patrick's Day jamboree in Washington had long grated with me. I struggle to think of another country whose politicians mark the national holiday by travelling thousands of miles to be patted on the head, or lectured, or both.
Yet this annual flight of the earls is somehow apt. It is famoulsy well known that the largest parade on St. Patrick's Day is not in Belfast or Dublin, but in New York. March the 17th has long been a day for the diaspora to toast their great great great granny from County Cork.
Well, fair play to them. If they wish to "celebrate the land that makes us refugees", I don't mind at all. But it's not for me. It might be nice to be Irish for one day each year. But I have to be Irish for 365 days a year, and sometimes that isn't easy.
Paddy's Day is now too tainted for me by murdering politicians and greedy beer companies. From now on, I will remember my country on a much more sober occasion, Novemeber the 11th, Rememberance Day.
I will pause for a moment's silence to remember the thousands of my compatriots who gave their lives in the desperate struggle against fascism.
They, much more than St. Patrick, deserve to be remembered.