Shenanigans! NYC four-leaf clobbered in drunken 2024 St. Patrick’s Day spirit ranking — beaten out by cities like Savannah, Ga.
Erin no way, brah.
Local Irish eyes are far from smiling after a ranking of the best U.S. burgs for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day saw NYC squeezed from the top five, behind the likes of Reno, Nev. and Savannah, Ga.
Utilizing a painstaking if baffling methodology, the snakes-in-the-grass at Wallethub gave Gotham the gloomy eye in the shock survey, awarding the top spot to another small city called Boston.
The bunch of blarney comes as New York prepares to host the oldest and largest parade of its kind in the nation, one expected to draw two million people to the Big Apple on Saturday, Mar. 16 — nearly four times the population of Dublin.
But the parade’s legendary status — coupled with the Tri-State’s wealth of Irish-American history and the largest collection of Irish pubs and restaurants in the United States — wasn’t enough for the WalletHub wonks, who wobbled their way from Chicago to Savannah, Ga. to Reno, Nev. and on to Pittsburgh to award their top five.
New York City finally teetered onto the list at number six.
Cities were awarded a slot on the list based on their performance in four different major categories — tradition, costs, safety/accessibility, and weather.
The home of Ellis Island and Jimmy Breslin and steam table corned beef and cabbage scored best on traditions, ranking at number five — where it was still bested by less-obviously Irish cities like Seattle in the category.
Beyond that, the city was held back by high prices — a New York specialty — and a dismal weather forecast for the weekend. Safety and accessibility issues were also a major concern, apparently, despite the annual, abundant display of New York’s finest and bravest as part of each year’s celebration.
Savannah appeared to owe its high rank to a weather score of five and a safety tally of six. The city scored a measly 38 for tradition.
The historic coastal city is known as a hub of Irish immigration in the South, with well over two thousand people arriving from the Emerald Isle between 1800 and 1861.
The Irish and Northern Nevada date back to the mid 1800s, where two Irishmen struck silver near Virginia City, the largest population center in the Silver State at the time, according to local sources.
“They were a huge part of the population and workforce,” Ron James, retired Nevada historic preservation officer and Virginia City historian told USA Today.
“A lot came from County Cork, which had the only operating underground mine (in Ireland) at the time — tin and copper.”
The Irish population boomed after the 1859 silver strike, when word spread back in Ireland that relocating directly to Virginia City was a possibility — an attractive notion to those looking to avoid slum life on the East Coast, James said.
