St. Patrick’s Day has come to an end. Although the streets of Georgetown were packed with revelers and Irish bars had queues a block long, I’m sad to say that you would have been hard pressed to know that today was a holiday in downtown D.C. Yes, there was the odd green tie or scarf, but by and large the city was still dressed in its drab greys and blacks.

I come from Connecticut, which is a Catholic state, and grew up in a town where you were either Italian or you were Irish. (Okay, that’s not entirely true; you could be Polish or Puerto Rican.) And if you weren’t any of those things, you just sort of coasted along, knowing, as my grandmother used to say that, in all likelihood, you’d end up marrying someone who was. All of southern New England boasts a similar population, as does New York (City, at least), as we were the first stops on the boat over from Europe and probably, therefore, the cheapest fare. And people just stayed.

I’ve made much of the Italian American demographic of the state, because we co-opted their food, and because their immigration waves came more recently than the Irish ones. But most Connecticut towns of a population over 15,000 had at least two Catholic churches — an Italian one and an Irish one — and we all made a big deal out of St. Patrick’s Day. Darby O’Gill and the Little People played on tv. And I never heard of pinching someone for not wearing green until I was in college and had met Westerners who thought this was appropriate behavior. I’m not going to speak for everyone in my home state, but I suspect that if you tried that to a stranger, you’d get socked in the jaw.

But it didn’t happen because you wore green. And if you didn’t, everyone just pitied you because you were forgetful and got dressed without remembering it was March 17.

I’m disappointed D.C. You could have done better — and with so little effort. Please at least buy some green socks before next March, and we’ll try again then.

In the meantime, I offer you two songs. The first is from Going My Way, a sweet film featuring Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald as Catholic priests in New York City:

The second is “You’re Not Irish,” by family friend Robbie O’Connell. He’s the nephew of the Clancy Brothers, and he performs his biographical tune with two of his Clancy cousins:

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!