January 2026


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the rubble of voices smashed by accordions, drums and fiddles, the jazz of glass, an occasion famed in Sydney annals as ‘St Patrick’s night at The Mercantile pub on George Street’. It had been rumbling for 7 hours. The street was now closed. Behind forbidding metal barricades, punters at simple cast iron tables, under canopies,


sang, caroused and laughed


like hyenas, a good-natured rowdiness in embryo. All the trees on the street were obligingly lit up too. And I remembered granny’s tales from my earliest childhood, of the ‘Drowning’ of Paddy’s Shamrock’, and ordered a Bushmills--on the rocks--and once it came, though I dislike spirits, I called to mind her buttery brogue--and toasted the health of all my loved dead.


dodgems and swing boats, onto the fringes of Lavender Bay, the most beautiful cove on Sydney Harbour, a perfect U-shape fronting the slopes of pretty Clark Park on a trail that led to McMahons Point. In late afternoon, it was almost deserted. “It looks like a postcard,” she said, as we sauntered close to the tiny flotilla of sailboats, then towards the money-shot tourists die for, the perfect twin-framing of Harbour Bridge with Sydney Opera House gleaming beneath. Granny went quiet. St Patrick’s Day morning dawned on TV with a fanfare of Oirishry and begorrahs. Channel 9 played “I’ll Tell Me Ma” instead of its usual musical intro. But thanks to my bed at the QT Hotel--more cloud than mattress—I’d overslept. “Happy St Paddy’s Day” I yawned. But there was silence. Granny had gone, returned to my niche of special memories. Thus it was I lunched at Bennelong, the restaurant at the Opera


House, alone. If you ever eat there, sit at the bar for best views and service. The Barramundi was exceptional and I could almost see the arc of the Harbour Bridge. My Sydney treat. If it’s on your bucket list, don’t lose your


nerve. For once you’re home it’s a long road back to change your mind. From the top of the span I could see the Blue Mountains (another bucket-list destination). I stored the feeling--and witnessed a similar almost out-of-the-body awe in the widened gaze of fellow climbers. “Just a little bit nearer heaven,” one of them said. I imagine for all of us, coming back down was a bumpy adjustment, a double wake up. To prove we’d done it, we chose from the pics our guide had taken during the climb. Then handshakes all round. “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day” one of them said. I needed to celebrate. Thankfully darkness came. It helped. It sharpened my senses. I followed the din,


Tom Adair was a guest of: Tourism Australia (www. australia.com ) and of Visit NSW (www.visitnsw.com )


ST PATRICKS IN SYDNEY | 33


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