Submitted by Quinn Wichert the 2024 Spring program in Madrid, Spain…
This week was St. Patrick’s Day and it quickly became apparent that many study abroad students flock to Dublin for the weekend. I didn’t embark on this journey but from what I gathered from my friends, it’s really something. I stayed in Madrid this weekend and celebrated at a local Irish pub down the road from where I live. It’s actually the first place we came to the day we arrived in Madrid. Now we frequent “The Beer Temple” on a weekly basis. For the holiday they had an Irish band performing in the afternoon which meant putting on our green and joining friends at the pub for a Guinness.
Here we met two gentlemen, Jose and Marco. Jose was celebrating his birthday and his recovery from heroin and Marco works with bands in Madrid. He was actually lending a number of instruments to The Treblemakers (the band playing). We chatted with them for a while, mainly about music, and about Marco’s latest project, a book about music. When the band started playing we packed the small pub and enjoyed the set of classic Irish tunes.
It was fantastic to hear all the classic Irish songs indicative of St.Patrick’s day in person with authentic instruments like the flute and accordion. I will say the 10 person band was absolutely obliterated by the end of the day. We chatted with a few of the members after their set and they informed us that they’d been drinking since 9 am, it was now 6pm. Nevertheless they did an amazing job and I felt like I got the Dublin experience right here in Madrid. (Submitted on March 25, 2024)