Back in the late noughties I was a regular attendee at the various festivals taking place in Yoyogi Park and can remember going to ones relating to the likes of Vietnam, India, Jamaica, Thailand, Brazil and Gay Pride. However, it’s been well over a decade since I went to one. That changed on St. Patrick’s Day last weekend though when we went to one called Green Ireland Festival 2024; the new name for what used to be known as the I Love Ireland Festival.

I was talking last week to a Japanese teacher at one of my schools about St Patrick’s Day as she has to teach certain calendar events to kids doing the Eiken examination which is popular in this country (but not in many others!). She kindly gave me a load of St. Patrick’s Day stickers to give to my students and basically brought the day itself to my attention. A coincidence maybe but a few hours later this Tokyo-based festival was promoted my way on social media. Big Brother is always watching us I guess!

Rina’s been keen for us to take our little Chihuahua out for lengthy walks on Sundays recently. It’s for our benefit too and also saves us doing two separate outings. With very few ideas left in my head, I suggested taking him to Yoyogi Park and then popping into see the Irish festival for a bit at some point. She liked the idea as she has a lot of love for the country having been to Cork for a homestay when she was a student. My own travels to Ireland over the 2000-2001 New Year were not as cultural, and certainly not sophisticated as it was just a drinking trip with some university mates!

What was surprising on our arrival in Yoyogi Park just after the starting time of 10:00 am was that the event was actually in the main part of the park rather than being tucked away on the outskirts as used to always be the case. Maybe it depends on the size of the event  but this location, near the main entrance, seemed far better for enticing the more casual park goers unaware of the festival beforehand.

It was a lovely sunny Sunday morning with the occasional big gusts of wind blowing through. It didn’t take too long for the photo opportunities to arrive as staff members presented me with a themed cardboard window to hold up. Alcohol is a major part of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations for most, and even though I don’t drink anymore (15 months without touching a drop now), it didn’t stop me from being pictured holding a big frothy cardboard beer!

I have been fairly negative about St. Paddy’s Day in the past, particularly with regard to the drinking aspect. It’d be easy to ignore those comments from this post in 2007 which were fairly tongue-in-cheek but I kind of stand by them. This year though I just decided to fully embrace the Irishness of it all (cultural appropriation??) by listening to some Irish bands in the morning and wearing my old rugby shirt. I certainly wasn’t the only plastic Paddy in the park as a few Japanese people had also donned the green jersey worn by the team that had retained the Six Nations Championship in the early hours of that morning.

There were cheesy photo opportunities aplenty and I took advantage of most of them, particularly the Leprechaun ones. It was all good natured fun but I can imagine real Irish people are wincing at such pictures!

Some Tokyo-based British and Irish bars had stalls which were of course selling Guiness as well as whiskey and beer with the latter available in a green colour at some of them.

As well as food and drink stalls, there were also some other stands promoting Irish culture, selling merchandise or offering information on upcoming events such as the Riverdance 25th Anniversary show which is coming to Japan in May this year.

Also present were a couple of players and some staff from NEC Green Rockets who I went to see play in Kashiwa last season. They are now playing in the second tier of Japan’s rugby League and I’m not sure why they were present rather than one of the bigger Tokyo teams but maybe it’s just because they have the word green in their name!

They had some hands-on activities for the public to try out such as throwing a rugby ball through three different sized holes. I managed to do two of them including the most difficult one. There was also the chance to be a line-out member which involved being lifted up very high by two guys ready to receive a ball. It really was quite a scary height. A big tackle-bag was also available for those wanting to practice their diving tackles.

The two players on hand were fly-half Ko Yoshimura and hooker Ren Osawa. I really enjoyed chatting to both of them, particularly the former whose English is pretty good.

Live traditional Irish music was naturally a staple of the day and enjoyable to watch and listen to. What I wanted to see was a Riverdance performance as back in the early 90s I was actually quite mesmerized by seeing Michael Flatley and Jean Butler dance to Bill Whelan’s incredible music at Eurovision ’94. Sadly, the performance here was quite short (under ten minutes) and so I missed about half of it!

The reason for being absent for part of it was that Rina wanted some food and so we spent a while trawling round the various stalls checking out the various options. After much thought, she finally opted for bangers and mash. It may have not looked much but it was all very tasty. Maybe reducing the plate size would be a good idea for the sellers so it doesn’t look so small!

Does that look worth 1000 yen ($6.70)?!!

Our dog got quite a bit of attention as is fairly normal on any walk but that was nothing compared to some other mutts that were dressed up in Irish colours and costumes.

After a few hours in the park we headed back towards Harajuku station where the Irish and Japan flags were out on the streets ready for the afternoon parade (the 29th of its kind) taking place on the road going to Omotesando where around 1000 people were expected to particpate. We were never really planning to see that and hadn’t anticipated getting as involved as we did in the park festivities.

Bonus: We ended up in a restaurant called Sakku Cha Sora (3-55-18 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku) on the outskirts of Shibuya ward close to Kita Sando station where we had a late lunch consisting of soup, rice, vegetables and either a hamburg steak (me) or seaweed chicken karaage (her!). Both were really good and the restaurant itself is a fairly stylish place with some very kind staff.

Little did I know until we left but the restaurant was located in the Sunwell Gallery building which featured in ‘Tokyo Modern Architecture #10‘ just over a year ago.

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper Special: TF Top 10……Quirky Japanese Festivals’

Click here to read ‘The Irish Wannabes Just Keep Doublin’ And Dublin!’

Click here to read ‘Japan’s Sakura 15 Rugby Team Host Ireland In Tokyo: My First Ever Women’s Match!’

Click here to read ‘TF Flashback – When The Ireland Rugby Team Played In Tokyo For The First Time (2005)’