Germany: Germany celebrated St Patrick's Day with parties and Irish evenings in cities and towns across the country, including an Irish folk festival in Baden.
In Berlin, the celebrations centred on the Irish Embassy reception that has grown every year since the embassy relocated to Berlin six years ago.
Yesterday was the largest event yet, held in the marble and gold ballroom of the Palais am Festungsgraben, a former palace just off Berlin's Unter den Linden. A large crowd enjoyed stout and oysters as a dozen composers, from Beethoven to Wagner, glared down from the painted ceiling.
Irish pubs across the city were packed all day and by late evening revellers were enjoying live music from bands including The Sheep Shaggers, whose name takes some creative thinking to translate for locals.
One of the biggest parades in Europe was held in Munich last Sunday, where locals swapped their Weizenbeer for stout for the 11th annual parade. "What started in 1996 with 250 participants is now a huge event with 25,000 people and 37 groups," said parade co-founder Paul Daly.
In Vienna, there was a special mass in the Scottish church, followed by a small parade through the city centre, ending in front of the Burgtheater. Entertainment came from the Shamrock Dance Company among others.
In the Latvian capital, Riga, the newly opened Irish embassy held its first St Patrick's Day reception with over 200 guests in the Black Cat House in the old town.
Back in snowy Berlin, meanwhile, the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper recommended that readers leave the freezing, grey weather behind and celebrate St Patrick's Day not in Dublin but on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, where week-long Ireland celebrations end today.
