While Canadians from coast to coast will don their best green duds and drink dyed-green suds after work this St. Patrick's Day, only workers in the province of Newfoundland & Labrador will take a holiday to reflect on the province's Irish roots. While not a statutory holiday, many workplaces and collective agreements in Newfoundland still mark the Feast of St. Patrick with a day off - even if they don't call it by its name, and even though it doesn't always coincide with March 17.

Newfoundland's close ties to Ireland, dating back over 300 years, have remained strong for reasons well beyond the geographic proximity of the two North Atlantic islands. “The experience of the Irish who immigrated to Newfoundland was very different from those who went to other places in North America,” explains Carolyn Lambert, a PhD student who is examining how the Newfoundland Irish maintained their ethnic identity.

Ms. Lambert says that the Irish were lured to Newfoundland's shores in the 18th and early 19th century to work in the fishing trade, many as seasonal workers, with the heaviest period of permanent immigration occurring between 1815-1832. In 1836, half of census respondents on the island claimed Irish heritage.

She explains that these Newfoundland-Irish had a very different experience than did the large wave of Irish immigrants who came to North America later, during the famine, and settled in places like New York, Boston and New Brunswick. This rapid influx tended to spark a backlash against those who arrived poor and often with little employment opportunity. Regarded as either a threat or a drain by many, these immigrants were ghettoized. Signs that read “No Irish need apply” were not uncommon in American cities, Ms. Lambert notes.

“The Irish in Newfoundland have none of that history of violence or friction that we see in other places,” she says. “Here, they were major leaders of the community.”

According to former Irish Prime Minister Dr. John Bruton, who received an honorary degree and addressed the graduands at Memorial's Fall 2003 convocation: “Northern Ireland's troubles can be symbolized in the conflict between the Harp and the Crown - the conflict between Irishness and Britishness. People there mistakenly feel that they must have one identity or the other, and never both.

Yet here in Newfoundland, The Benevolent Irish Society - the oldest society of its kind in North America - in whose St. Patrick's Day parade I participated in 1996, has a banner which includes both the Harp and the Crown. This shows that the Irish who came to Newfoundland before our Great Famine had a sense of Irish identity that did not exclude wider allegiances as well.”

Given Newfoundland's strong association with Ireland, those `from away' may be surprised to find that St. Paddy's isn't celebrated in an overt fashion here. While the Benevolent Irish Society of Newfoundland, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, still holds a parade, it is not the sort of raucous, lavish spectacle, replete with floats, that many other cities host.

Ms. Lambert notes that in Newfoundland, St. Patrick's Day has always combined religious observance with social events to commemorate the ongoing sense of connection to Ireland. “During the day, parades were small marches that gave people a chance to show social standing, to carry their banner, and the march ended at church where a sermon honoured St. Patrick,” she says. “In the evening, dinners or balls were common, and a lot of toasts traditionally made to Ireland, and to members of the community, but also to the queen.”

Dr. Danine Farquharson, an expert in Irish literature, drama and film, recently joined Memorial's Department of English after several years in Ontario. She reports enormous differences in the way St. Patrick's Day is marked there and here. “In Waterloo, you can't walk into a pub on St. Patrick's Day. Everyone is out drinking green beer. It's very extreme and very specific to that day,” she says. “It's not as excessive here, I think because the lifestyle of going out for a pint has more consistency here.”

Furthermore, the day off which many Memorial staff enjoy isn't even called St. Patrick's Day - it's referred to as “mid-March” - and it is observed on the nearest Monday: March 20th this year.

“What's interesting is that we still mark the day, but it has officially lost its connection to the original holiday,” notes Dr. Farquharson. Still, she says, apparent in the customs, culture and art of Newfoundland, “there is a profound lingering sense of those associations with Ireland.”