Often in my obsession with Ireland I find some really neat things.  I made one such discovery last week while looking at the annual events page for Harp and Fiddle – an Irish pub in Pittsburgh.  I found that every year there is an event called The Great Guinness Toast, and I just happened to discover it about a week or so before, which meant I could participate.  How fortunate!!

Obviously I had to learn more.  As it turns out, this marvelous celebration of Irish beer and friendship began in 1993 in my very own city of Pittsburgh – by the good people at the Harp and Fiddle Irish pub no less!!

 

The Great Guinness Toast is an annual event held every year on the third Friday in February – also lovingly known as St Practice Day.  It’s is an attempt at setting a world record for the largest simultaneous toast, and every year it has consistently broken it’s own record.  So every year The Great Guinness Toast sets the world record for the largest simultaneous toast, which is then recorded in…….you guessed it!  The Guinness Book of World Records!!  Gotta love that!!  In fact, according to Wikipedia:

In 2001 and as captured in the Guinness Book of World Records, over 300,000 adults, age 21 and older, raised their pint glasses of Guinness. The Great Guinness Toast will be held in more than 60 cities across the U.S.

So of course, the logical plan of action for me was to get as many of my friends involved in this as possible.  And since my friends are total enablers of my Ireland obsession, they all went with me to Finnigan’s Wake and we all participated in the Great Guinness Toast together.

 

<<<That’s me and my 2 best enablers.  We love Guinness!!  :)

 

I especially enjoyed my Guinness.  I can’t normally drink beer of any kind due to a gluten intolerance, but I wasn’t going to miss out on this, so I took one for the team.  Bodily sacrifice for the sake of Guinness and Ireland and world records and friends and just plain fun. :) I must say, since I haven’t had a Guinness in so long, the experience was extra special for me.  And it was certainly worth the misery that I knew would ensue the next day.

There are good ships,
and there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea.
But the best ships, are friendships,
And may they always be.

I’ll raise my glass of Guinness to that.  Cheers!!  :)