The best St. Patrick’s Day party at home comes down to five things: a running order so the day has a shape, one proper pot of food, the right three drinks, live or at least loud Irish music, and green without the leprechauns. On the South Shore you have one more advantage — Plymouth is where our pubs live, so the pub can come to you. Here is how we would run it.
We are The Síbín, a mobile Irish pub business based in Plymouth, and March is our busiest month by a distance. What follows is what we tell people who ring us in January asking how to do St. Patrick’s Day at home instead of in a crowd.
The running order
A party with a shape is a party people remember. This one has been tested more than once:
- The day before. The pub is yours for 24 hours, so have it delivered the evening before. Kegs on, coolers cold, bunting up, and you get a quiet pint in your own pub before anyone arrives.
- Morning. If you are going to a parade, go. Come home. The party is here, not in the car park.
- Early afternoon. Doors open. Tea, soda bread, the first slow pint. This is for the neighbours, the parents and the kids.
- Four o’clock. The pot comes out. Bacon and cabbage or the stew, served from the kitchen, eaten wherever people are standing.
- Early evening. Music starts. A session if you can get players; a well-made playlist if you cannot. The Irish coffee round goes out about now.
- Night. The crowd thins to the ones who were always going to stay. This is what a snug is for.
- The morning after. The pub is collected. You put the kettle on and find the horseshoe someone left on the bar.
The food
Keep it to one big pot and a loaf, and nobody goes hungry.
Bacon and cabbage is the Irish dish. A joint of back bacon or a loin, boiled, with the cabbage cooked in the same water and floury potatoes on the side, and a white sauce or a bit of mustard. Corned beef and cabbage is the Irish-American version — immigrants in Boston and New York found beef brisket cheaper than the bacon they knew at home and made do, and a tradition was born. Neither is wrong. If your family grew up on corned beef, serve corned beef.
Soda bread is the thing to put out early and keep topping up. Flour, buttermilk, bread soda, salt — four ingredients, no yeast, no waiting, and it is on the table within the hour. Brown or white; both with far too much butter.
A pot of stew is the alternative if you want something people can help themselves to all afternoon. Lamb or beef, onions, carrots, potatoes, slow. A stew improves the longer it sits on a low heat, which suits a party that runs from two until midnight.
For the sweet end, a Guinness or whiskey cake, or a plate of barmbrack with a ring hidden in it, keeps the theme without anyone having to dye anything green.
The drink
Three drinks do the whole day: stout, Irish whiskey and Irish coffee.
A keg of stout on a proper draft line is the difference between a party and a pub. Both our pubs have the lines, the keg setup and the beer gas for it; you bring the keg. Put a second line on for a lager or an Irish red and you have covered most of the room.
Irish whiskey is a conversation, not a shot. Put two or three bottles on the bar and let people compare. A hot whiskey — whiskey, hot water, a slice of lemon studded with cloves, a spoon of sugar — is the drink for anyone who has come in from the cold.
Irish coffee is the one to do as a round, early evening: hot coffee, a measure of whiskey, sugar, and cream floated on top so it sits as a white layer. Do not stir it. The whole point is drinking the hot coffee through the cold cream.
A note on all of the above: we never sell alcohol. You, the host, supply every drop, and we supply the pub to pour it in. If you would rather not spend your own party behind the bar, our bartenders from Ireland — TIPS-certified and insured — can be added to the booking. The two options are compared on our staffed vs dry hire page.
Rules vary by town — check with your local licensing board.
The music
A live session beats everything. Two or three players — fiddle, guitar, a bodhrán, a box — in a corner of the pub, and the room sings. If you know anyone who plays, this is the day to ask.
If you do not, build a playlist from the standards everybody knows the words to:
- “The Wild Rover” — the clapping song. Four claps, no exceptions.
- “Whiskey in the Jar”
- “The Fields of Athenry” — slower, and the whole room will join the chorus.
- “Molly Malone” (“Cockles and Mussels”) — the Dublin one.
- “The Irish Rover”
- “Dirty Old Town”
- “Black Velvet Band”
- “Danny Boy” — late, and only once.
Mix the ballads with the faster tunes, and keep the sad ones for after ten. The Síbín has a sound system and a smart TV; The Aer has a speaker system. Both will carry a playlist to the back of the crowd.
Green, not leprechauns
The quickest way to make a St. Patrick’s Day party look cheap is a bag of plastic from the pharmacy. Leave the hats, the orange beards and the cardboard leprechauns in the shop.
What works instead:
- Green and gold, not green and more green. A few metres of green bunting, candles in amber glass, and the odd touch of gold.
- Real things. A tricolour if you want one. Fresh shamrock if you can find it, or any small-leaved green plant in a pot. Old Irish prints or a framed family photograph from home.
- Light. Low, warm and not too much of it. A pub is dark for a reason.
- One proper sign. A chalkboard at the bar with the night’s drinks on it does more than any amount of glitter.
The Síbín comes dressed already — the walls carry genuine Irish history, including Dáil Éireann bonds, a Daniel O’Connell signature and a 1916 Irish Volunteer newspaper — so the décor inside is done for you. The Aer is a blank canvas with a pitched roof and a pub sign over the door, and takes bunting beautifully.
Space and power for a pub in the driveway
Two pubs, two footprints.
The Síbín is a towed Victorian Irish pub that seats about sixteen, with a working bar, a real snug, an electric stove heater for a March evening, AC for anything else, and a smart TV and sound system. It needs roughly a parking-space footprint of level ground, vehicle access for delivery and collection, and a reliable power supply within reach.
The Aer is an inflatable Irish pub for twenty-five to thirty. It is four metres square and four metres tall, made of fire-retardant, waterproof, UV-protective fabric, and it runs off a single blower — so it needs continuous power for as long as it is standing. A lawn or a wide, level driveway does it. Add the bar table, seating and a jockey box and it is a complete pub.
Travel inside the Plymouth area is included in the rental. Beyond it we quote a delivery fee up front, before you commit to anything. Prices for both pubs and for bartending are on our pricing page.
Book early — March goes months ahead
We have two pubs and one March 17th. The weekend either side of it goes first, then the day itself, then the rest of the month. If you want the pub for St. Patrick’s Day, the time to ask is now — our St. Patrick’s Day page has the detail, and the booking takes a minute.
The South Shore angle
Plymouth is home, so the South Shore gets the shortest drive, no delivery fee inside the Plymouth area, and the most March dates. We know the roads, the parade routes and the weekends to avoid them.
That is the real case for a party at home down here. The South Shore’s parades draw a serious crowd, and the pubs around them are three deep at the bar by noon. Go to the parade, enjoy it, and then come home to a pub with no queue, no cover charge, your own music and nobody driving.
If the weekend is gone or you simply want a quieter night, consider the weekday. A midweek session has a long and honourable history in Ireland, The Síbín is cheaper Monday to Thursday, and the pub is far more likely to be free. The 24-hour rental means it can arrive the evening before and leave the morning after, so a Wednesday still gets a full day of it.
Tell us the date, where you are and roughly how many are coming, and we will confirm availability within a day.