By Don Urquhart, Times-Chronicle
There couldn’t possibly have been better timing – the rollback of many of the pandemic restrictions came just six days before St. Patrick’s Day. What better way to celebrate a step towards some form of normalcy than St. Patrick’s Day at the pub?
In the interest of community service, the Times-Chronicle ensconced itself at the Owl Pub in Osoyoos to report on this important first real party in over two painful pandemic years.
Green beer is a must.
When the Times-Chronicle arrived at 3:30 p.m. there was nary a table to be had. The next few hours saw a steady stream of green-clad celebrants stream into the pub, filling even the tables on the heated but still chilly patio.
“After two years it’s nice to see all these people out!” said the Owl Pub’s Clover Daley who added that the pub was expecting full capacity all night.
Daley might well add another designation to her job title – that of CDO (Chief Decorating Officer) – given that she is the undisputed boss of event decorating for the pub. She’s been doing it for 10 years now for all of the events.
“I change it up a little bit here and there with different decorations but I kind of keep adding to it, adding a little bit more lights or balloons and it just keeps getting bigger!”
This year she was told by management “to go all out” because it’s the first party in two pandemic stricken years. It may seem an easy job, but Daley says she spent nearly 40 hours doing up the pub, something she wisely started immediately after Valentine’s Day.
This early start is necessitated by the fact she can only fit in a couple of hours here and there. Even the night before she spent almost five hours wrapping all the tables in green, and she had help which normally she doesn’t.
Drinking in the green transformation of the pub it’s hard to imagine that it all began a decade ago with a few green balloons and streamers. She had a bit of an edge though, as a school kid she used to decorate school dances and drama club events. And then she worked at an Irish restaurant where she of course honed her magic every March 17.
For musician Billy Wiseman, AKA the ‘Saltwater Cowboy,’ St Patrick’s Day is his biggest day of the year.
“I’ve always loved throwing parties and I’ve always felt that a party should feel like a party, especially with a theme,” she said. But if you want to see her finest creation, you need to visit the Owl during Halloween, when she transforms the pub into a haunted house.
Of course, St. Patrick’s Day wouldn’t be complete without Irish music (and let’s not forget the obligatory green-hued beer).
For musician Billy Wiseman, AKA the Saltwater Cowboy, St Patrick’s Day is “always my biggest day of the year.” For the St. John’s, Newfoundland native, Expo ‘86 brought him to the coast where he ended up working in the Irish pubs that were part of the Coast Hotel chain for 27 years.
Now firmly rooted in the Okanagan, Wiseman works at Gray Monk Winery both in the wine business as well as playing music. “I still get out on weekends to play, especially at wineries,” he says, adding he really only plays pubs on St. Patrick’s Day.
When asked what makes St. Patrick’s Day special, he says it’s a day for the Irish to go back to the roots and for those who aren’t Irish, “it’s a night where everybody can be Irish and everybody can have fun, it’s just a good way to party!”
Dancers from the Castilla School of Irish Dance look forward to their Owl Pub visit each year.
An annual highlight of the Irish festivities at the Owl is not just the ‘greenery’, nor the music, it’s the Irish dancers. This comes courtesy of the Castilla School of Irish Dance which has studios in Kelowna and Penticton.
The school’s Ciara Duignan says the annual visit to the Owl is “our biggest fundraiser of the year but it’s also our favourite event!” On hand this year were nine dancers from beginners all the way up to championship level. In fact, one of the dancers will be part of a contingent competing at the World Irish Dancing Championships in Belfast in mid-April.
The Irish dancers perform frequently for weddings, schools, multicultural events around the Okanagan, something that has been confined largely to the virtual world like much else during the last two years.
For these young dancers, Osoyoos was the last stop in the evening after beginning their St. Patrick’s Day dancing mid-afternoon in Penticton. But if there was any tiredness it certainly wasn’t visible as the lightning-footed dancers enchanted the receptive crowd more than a leprechaun could ever dream of.
