My first warning was a fountain turning green, then green horses pulling green carriages down a painted green street. I had just arrived in this country and was working in Savannah, Georgia in Kevin Barry's, an Irish bar run by an Italian from Queens. I was fed to the lions that day, carrying trays of lime-green Jello shots to the biggest hoard of drunken green people I've ever seen. Amid the frenzy I spotted on old nun in the corner playing the spoons.
My only two friends on the continent came to rescue me at the end of the shift and lead me shell-shocked through the emerald masses to their local gay bar. I live in New York now and the authorities ban gays from the parade. This St Patrick's Day, I'll be performing in the Tenement Museum as part of a group of Irish women artists called Banshee. Anything goes. Later we'll be going on stage in the trendy Knitting Factory. I suppose this is where the new Irish will be, not marching down the street in military-style formation but rocking the house with songs, stories and poems.
Emer Martin (29) is a novelist. She has lived in America for seven years.
