Ireland Descends Into A Drunken Madness in the Holy Land on St. Patrick’s Day

Photo not of actual riot.

The AP reports, “Cars were torched, firefighters attacked and police bombarded in mayhem spawned by dusk-to-dawn drinking on St. Patrick’s Day, Irish authorities said Wednesday. Authorities were still assessing the damage from inebriated revelers who turned some districts of Dublin and Belfast into nightmares.”

Indeed, things got crazy in Ireland last night, with much of the action occurring in “…a neighborhood called the Holy Land directly beside Queen’s University. The area – so named because it has streets named Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo — has suffered St. Patrick’s riots for several years running, but older residents and politicians agreed this year’s was by far the worst.”

The response? “Officers of the Police Service of Northern Ireland donned full riot gear, including flame-retardant suits, to drive about 1,000 students back into their rented red-brick homes in a neighborhood called the Holy Land directly beside Queen’s University.”

Things got so out of control that “The Dublin Fire Brigade said its officers were pelted with stones, cans and bottles in several public housing projects overnight as they dealt with 46 fires, mostly mashed-up cars that had been set ablaze.”

It should be noted that St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin and Belfast wasn’t all good times and fire-bombed cars, as eight people died in drunk driving crashes, with another 346 arrested under suspicion of driving drunk. Those numbers terrify me, and I hope everyone out there had a safe and Guiness’d out St. Patrick’s Day.

Read the full story here [Yahoo News].

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