However you choose to mark St. Patrick’s Day—whether you plan to catch a leprechaun, dance a jig, drive the snakes from your lawn, or have your historically unprecedented economic surge come crashing down around your ears—DRIVEN hopes you have a good one. We look forward to the day when all such cultural celebrations are so widely enjoyed, and all such ethnic stereotypes are rendered as relatively harmless, as are those of the Irish in North America.

Indulge in a little bit of music and visuals from the Emerald Isle after the jump.

First up, we have The Dubliners  with ”I’ll Tell Me Ma,” in an excerpt from a rare and uncompleted Irish film, O’Donoghue’s Opera (filmed during the notorious Irish razor shortage of 1965).

Next, to illustrate the global appeal of traditional Irish music, may we present a group of Serbs who call themselves The Orthodox Celts, with their mostly orthodox interpretation of “Rocky Road to Dublin.”

If you need a reminder that there’s more to Irish music than straight up trad, give a listen to the Dublin-based Great Western Squares‘ countrified cover of Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades.”

And what St. Patrick’s Day would be complete without a little Shane MacGowan? Here are the ever lovin’ Pogues with “If I Should Fall From Grace With God.” 

Sláinte!

(Photo of Saint Patrick in stained glass by Sicarr.)