Happy St. Patricks Day Parade in Oslo Norway

March 17, 2009
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I had another cultural adventure in Oslo last Saturday. To mark the feast-day of the Patron Saint of Ireland; The Oslo St Patrick’s Day Association arranged the yearly parade. I was armed to my teeth with the Nokia N82 and Nikon S2 cam to be able to share with you:

St. Patrick's Day Parade in Oslo #16

As much as I love to share, I like to take these kind of events to learn something too – especially when it matches the theme of my blog about Norway; our culture, traditions and habits. Like I told you in my post about this parade last year; In 852, Olaf the White, the Ainhlabh of the Irish chronicles, descended from the same family as Harold Hårfagre (the Fair-Haired), the first King of Norway, conquered Dublin (Dubh Linn; “Black Pool”), with the adjacent territory, and founded this, the most renowned, most powerful and most lasting Norwegian kingdom in Ireland. This corresponded to most of present-day County Dublin. Norse Rulers of Dublin were often co-kings, and occasionally also Kings of Jorvik in what is now England. The region was known to the Vikings as Dyflin, pronounced “dyoov-lin” (in either Old Norse or Modern Norwegian). The English later took Old Irish “Dubh Linn” and collapsed it to the modern “Dublin” and some still use “Divlyn”.

It was a wonderful parade down Oslo’s walking street; Karl Johan, up towards the castle and I can only give you a sample and hope you get the idea of it. Let’s start with something very Irish, to get you in the right mode:

Oslo Caledonian Pipe Band


I took a lot of pics too of course and to make it short as pics says more than a thousand words:



Blogging Connecting People:
You know my saying and let me use it in a detailed way this time: Some weeks ago, I got a nice comment on one of my pics at Flickr from last years parade. I loved that and traced the commenter, got in touch and she invited me to this year’s parade. It turned out, she was very sweet and pretty young lady (but of course, she is born in Norway but are very Irish!) and involved in Irish activities here. She is a dancer in several dance troupes: Taranis Oslo Irish performance troupe as well as Sound-Irish Dance Company and Sound-Irish Dance Factory. Catherine (holding the banner) and some of the dancers formed a group in the parade and when ended at Oslo University square, she arranged so I could take this picture (click to bigify and enjoy!):
St. Patrick's Day Parade in Oslo #1
Maybe some of you recognise on person in the middle of this picture?


There was hundreds participants in the parade and even more spectators along the parade route. Everyone supporting and feeling a bit ‘Irish’ (also wearing something green) that day. They showed a warm hearted patriotism, just the way I like it: not to demonstrate power or superiority … but pure happiness and passion for the country and culture they love and care for. I got the 17th of May (Norwegian National Day) feeling and of course I’ll get back to that in two months.

Culture, History, Tradition, Travel Norway