I WAS supposed to join my brother and his wife to take part in the St Patrick’s Day parade in my home town of Letterkenny, but as I looked out my window at the rain bucketing down, I decided to give it a miss.

Sure, says I to myself, who wants to walk a couple of miles drenched to the skin, when the attractive alternative is sitting beside a nice fire in a wee country pub in rural Inishowen?

It was no contest.

Anyway, as we were driving on the outskirts of Buncrana later in the day, heading towards the aforementioned hostelry, I noted a whole host of people dressed in a tremendous array of green costumes, making a run for their cars as they were getting absolutely soaked in the torrential rain. It really was heavy-duty weather.

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It was a chaotic scene, and it reminded me of another St Patrick’s Day many years ago.

Back in 1989 we took the family to Australia, and on March 17 I recall driving over Sydney Harbour Bridge.

It turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my life, as we got totally lost, but that’s a story for a different day.

I recall the sun was splitting the rocks, and driving over the historic bridge with it vast array of cars,........

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