Top of the morning to you
箱根からです。アイルランドの「おはようございます」を意味するこの表現は、UG先生が國弘正雄さんのTalk Showを使用して授業されたときに覚えたものです。対談のお相手は当時のアイルランド駐日大使でした。Goodもいいですが、Top ofもまた何とも言えない味わいがあると感じました。（bookmark）
New York Today: St. Patrick’s Day Parade (and Protests)
Top of the morning to you on this St. Patrick’s Day.
Carry an umbrella, or a very large shamrock. It’s raining.
The St. Patrick’s Day parade marches up Fifth Avenue today, with an openly gay group in its ranks for the first time.
The organizers allowed OUT@NBCUniversal to march, after coming under pressure last year over the restrictions on gay and lesbian Irish groups.
(NBC will broadcast the parade, which begins at 11 a.m.)
But at least one group, Irish Queers, is expected to demonstrate at the parade.
And Mayor Bill de Blasio will again sit out the parade in protest of the still-restrictive policy.
Michael Grynbaum, who covers City Hall for The Times, told us the relationship between the mayor and the city’s Irish has been fraught from the beginning.
Last year, there was tension over the parade, the mayor’s stance on carriage horses, and a somewhat fumbled St. Patrick’s Day breakfast at Gracie Mansion, Mr. Grynbaum said.
This year, the problems continued.
There was a “dust-up over timing” of the breakfast, and last week, Mr. de Blasio arrived late, to boos, at a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Far Rockaway.
He will attend this year’s breakfast and go to Mass with Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the grand marshal of the parade.
“They have a warm friendship,” Mr. Grynbaum noted, adding, “You should look for them to be together.”
“Except at the parade, of course.”
