I think the rage over St Paddie's Day is in part down to jealousy - over the notion that it is quite harmless for people around the planet to dance around like drunken idiots for a day, and it is not bound up with religion or politics. The Unionist's equivalent day of celebrating their nationality is the 12th of July - which consists of an exclusively Protestant organisation marching up and down roads to celebrate their previous victory over Catholics. By its very nature it is sectarian - I am not allowed to join this organisation because I was baptised a Catholic, it can't therefore be described as anything other than sectarian. So if I was a mature and sensible Unionist I would be embarrassed that I had no other way to celebrate my nationality, a way that wasn't bound up with religion and which doesn't exclude any of my sensible Catholic neighbours from ever taking part.
The Unionist needs to find a place for himself in the modern secular world - a whole identity and political philosophy which is bound up with Religion and demands that everything stays the same forever more, is bound to fail - change will always happen even without your Nationalist neighbours driving it.
