Things You'll Need:
- Irish decorations
- Green food coloring
- Food & Drink
- Music CD
- Trivia
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Step 1
Decorations - Decorations don't have to be too elaborate for a St Patrick's Day party. Stick some big green cardboard or plastic shamrocks up, hang some green streamers, and borrow a green table cloth (or dye a sheet green) and you're good. Grocery stores will have green-colored long-stemmed carnations for sale, a bouquet would make a nice table decoration. If you have a plastic cauldron leftover from Halloween, you can use that for a centerpiece as well. Fill it most of the way up with green cloth or Easter grass if you have it, and then put gold-colored chocolate coins over the top (or leftover Mardi Gras plastic coins) to look like a leprechaun's pot of gold.
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Step 2
Green beerDrink - Pick up some good Irish beers such as Harp, Bass, Guinness, Newcastle, etc. You'll also want to have at least one green beer toast. To make green beer, put a drop or two of green food coloring in a clear mug, then pour in a light-colored beer (not a dark beer), and you'll have a nice green beer. Slainte! For green-colored cocktails, start with Midori melon liqueur and you can make a variety of neat concoctions (see Resources for mix recipes). I like the shooter, made with 2/3 Midori, then float 1/3 Irish cream liqueur on top. There's your St Patrick's Day drink menu.
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Step 3
Food - Irish food is generally hearty, comfort food. You'll want to have some substantial food available so your guests aren't drinking on an empty stomach. Traditional Irish dishes to have out are corned beef and cabbage, Irish stew, even some nice ham sandwiches on rye bread would be good. Allrecipes.com has several easy recipes for Irish soda bread that would be perfect as well (see Resources). You can have dishes of Lucky Charms cereal around for folks to snack on, especially if you will have kids attending.
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Step 4
Happy St. Pat's!Music - Of course you will have some Irish music playing at your party, right? Right. Go on Itunes and pick out 10 or 12 upbeat songs that you can download onto a CD. A few I would recommend are Whiskey in the Jar and Muirsheen Durkin by Barney McKenna, 3 or 4 reels by Altan (just search by artist name and their most popular songs come up), and Whiskey You're the Devil by Tommy Maken. Make sure to have Danny Boy by the Irish Tenors, The Wild Colonial Boy by the Clancy Brothers, and When Irish Eyes are Smiling by Frank Patterson. Print the lyrics of those three and have a sing-along when the party gets going. Be creative!
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Step 5
Things to do - In addition to a sing-along, you can have an Irish trivia contest (Google Irish Trivia Quiz) - Give a big green hat to the winner. Put a Riverdance DVD on and see who can do the best Irish jig.
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Step 6
Attire - Costumes aren't really required, but when you're at the party store getting green streamers, you can pick up some strands of green beads, "Kiss me I'm Irish" buttons, and Leprechaun hats to liven things up. A white shirt with a vest, or a white peasant blouse works with the theme also.
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Step 7
Irish coffeeCoffee - Don't forget to have some rich Irish coffee available for your guests at the end of the night. Coffee-Mate makes an Irish Creme flavored creamer, you can probably find others at any grocery store.
That's it. Sure and Begorrah, you'll have a great time. Happy St Patrick's Day!
Comments
whoodo said
on 3/5/2009 Never thought of particular types of beer for St. Patty's Day. Good tips.
sgfgirl said
on 2/22/2009 Great tips - thanks!
ReuseItAll said
on 2/18/2009 Great tips here!!! 5 star ideas!