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Where to celebrate St Patrick’s Day 2023 in Italy

St Patrick's Day is coming up on March 17th. Here's a look at where to celebrate if you're in Italy.

Published: 13 March 2023 13:35 CET
There are plenty of options for those wanting to celebrate St Patricks Day in Italy.
There are plenty of options for those wanting to celebrate St Patricks Day in Italy. Photo by Paul FAITH / AFP.

Milan

Milan has an entire week of St Patrick’s festivities planned with Ireland Week, a joint initiative by the City of Milan and the Irish embassy in Italy, which features film screenings, music and dance performances, and even a Gaelic football match.

As part of the event, the Spirit de Milan venue will host Spirit of Ireland, a three-day festival offering a combination of traditional Irish dance classes, live music concerts and Irish food experiences.

Rome

If St Patrick’s Day is more about religious observance than partying it up for you, you can attend a Lá Fhéile Pádraig mass at 10am at St Isidore’s College on March 17th.

READ ALSO: Nine of Italy’s best events to catch in spring 2023

Later the same day, the Scholars Lounge near Piazza Venezia will host 18 hours of “great Irish craic”, with five live music gigs followed by two DJ sets and free giveaways. 

On Saturday, March 18th, the Irish Club of Rome is putting on a three-course traditional Irish dinner followed by music and festivities at MONK, starting at 7pm and running till late. Tickets are €40 per person.

The Colosseum illuminated in green for St. Patrick's Day 2017.

The Colosseum illuminated in green for St. Patrick’s Day 2017. Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP.

Florence

Finnegan’s Pub will be celebrating St Paddy’s day with live music and a green beers and shots promotion. The merrymaking will start as early as 1pm and run through 1.30am.

Fitzpatrick’s on Via Ghibellina is hosting a week of Irish-themed events, including ‘A Taste of Ireland’ on the 15th, an Irish karaoke party on the 16th, a St Paddy’s party with a live DJ on the 17th, a performance by the Drunken Willow band on the 18th, and an ‘Irish Super Brunch’ on the 19th.

Other Florence-based Irish pubs putting on events or promotions on March 17th reportedly include JJ Cathedral, Il Trip per Tre, Michael Collins and The Old Stove.

At the Hard Rock Cafe, from 8.30 until 10.30pm, the Shamrock Dance Company will be performing on stage as patrons are served up a ‘Guinness Bacon Jam Cheeseburger’.

Bologna

Bologna will once again be hosting Irlanda in Festa, a four-day festival of live music, food and drink at Piazza Lucio Dalla from 16th-19th March; entry is free.

This year’s programme includes workshops for children, a craft market, darts tournaments, performances of Irish folk music, and a street food area for sampling Irish delicacies including steak cooked in Guinness and Bailey’s cheesecake.

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CULTURE

Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli dies at 83

Roberto Cavalli, whose penchant for python and flamboyant animal prints made him the darling of the international jet set for decades, died Friday at 83, the luxury company said.

Published: 13 April 2024 09:21 CEST
Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli dies at 83

“It is with deep regret and a great sadness the Roberto Cavalli Maison participates in the passing of its founder Roberto Cavalli,” wrote the company in a statement sent to AFP.

“From humble beginnings in Florence Mr. Cavalli succeeded in becoming a globally recognised name loved and respected by all,” said the company.

First seen in the 1970s on stars such as Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, Cavalli’s skin-baring, eye-popping styles were still favoured years on by later generations of celebrities, from Kim Kardashian to Jennifer Lopez.

With a taste for Ferraris, thoroughbred horses, fat cigars and tailored shirts unbuttoned to expose his tanned chest, the designer’s private life also appeared the stuff of fantasy.

He married a Miss Universe runner-up, owned a purple helicopter and a Tuscan vineyard, and was on a first-name basis with A-listers like Sharon Stone and Cindy Crawford.

But the designer also weathered challenges, including a dry spell in the 1980s when minimalism took hold on runways and his form-fitting, feathered creations looked out of step.

A years-long trial in Italy on tax evasion charges ultimately ended in Cavalli’s acquittal, but after his eponymous fashion house began posting losses, a majority stake was sold to private equity in 2015.

Best known for his use of printed leather and stretchy, sand-blasted jeans, Cavalli always embraced the wow factor in his designs, never encountering an animal print he did not like.

The designer was tapped in 2005 to update the Playboy Bunnies’ scanty uniform — true to form, he introduced one version in leopard print.

Party crasher

Born on November 15, 1940 in Florence, Italy’s premier leatherworking centre, Cavalli began painting on T-shirts to earn money while at art school.

He recalled in his blog in 2012 how he gate-crashed a party in 1970, and, seeking to save face when he met the host, who was a designer, told him that he printed on leather.

When the designer asked to see some of his work the next day, Cavalli hurried to find samples of thin, supple leather onto which he printed a flower design.

The designer was impressed, and Cavalli was hooked.

Taking his inspiration from glove design, Cavalli began working with calfskin, patenting a new way to print leather with patterns that soon caught the eye of French luxury goods maker Hermes and the late designer Pierre Cardin.

In the 1970s, he opened a shop in Saint Tropez, playground of the world’s glitterati, and debuted his collection in Paris.

He went on to present for the first time in Italy at Florence’s opulent Palazzo Pitti, grabbing attention with his boho-chic patchwork designs on denim that married the unpretentious fabric with expert tailoring.

‘I’m copying God’

Of his ubiquitous use of prints, the animal lover — whose menagerie once included a monkey — told Vogue in 2011: “I like everything that is of nature.”

“I started to appreciate that even fish have a fantastic coloured ‘dress’, so does the snake, and the tiger. I start(ed) to understand that God is really the best designer, so I started to copy God,” he told the magazine.

In the 1980s Cavalli’s instantly recognisable, exotic designs were out of sync with the minimalist look that was all the rage, but the designer came back with a bang a decade later with distressed-looking jeans that proved a hit.

His fashion empire expanded to home furnishings, wine, shoes, jewellery and even a line of vodka, its bottle sheathed in snakeskin.

Taking his style to the high street, he designed a fast-fashion line for Swedish retail giant H&M and tour outfits for Beyonce, among others.

But the label began to suffer financial difficulties amid increased competition from well-funded brands owned by fashion conglomerates LVMH and Kering, and Cavalli stepped down as creative director in 2013.

Two years later, Milan-based private equity group Clessidra bought a 90-percent stake in the company, but a restructuring failed to reverse losses.

After filing for administration and closing its US stores, the fashion group was bought in November 2019 by Vision Investments, the private investment company of Dubai real-estate billionaire Hussain Sajwani.

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