Santa

This year saw the first Belfast City Council funded Saint Patrick's Day parade. In return for £100,000 worth of rate-payers money, the council stipulated "there should be no emblems or symbols that would be deemed as sectarian, racist, or anything that would be offensive to anyone" (i.e. no tricklers [sic]). In the absence of the Irish flag at a parade in honour of patron saint of Ireland, and the forbidden use of imagery that might upset Loyalists, the paraders cleverly employed allegory and metaphor to tell the story of Patrick, much like dissident artists in Soviet-era Russia:


Saint Patrick was a milliner by profession; here we see examples of his trademark extended hennin

Exploiting his relationship with God, Saint Patrick could perform many magic tricks, which he called "miracles". One of his favourites was turning himself into a two dimentional cartoon character.

Saint Patrick was a Viking. When he bred with the dark skinned, black haired Irish natives, his Aryan genes were responsible the ginger haired, pale skinned Irish stereotype we know today.

Saint Patrick played the drums, but he wasn't very good at it.



Saint Patrick rode around on a giant green monster and was 18 feet tall.

Saint Patrick was gay. In fact, Saint Patrick invented gayness.

Saint Patrick's favourite type of music was reggae. He used to play drums for a reggae band that practiced in his dad's polytunnel, but they threw him out because he couldn't master the rapid-sticking high-hat accent necessary for their dub-informed style.

Saint Patrick was a communist.

Thus both Protestant and Catholic rate-payers funded a parade that was inoffensive to all and entertaining to none.