Picture this: It’s noon on Sunday and already the green-tinged line-ups of all creeds and colour have started outside Toronto’s many Irish pubs; some are already heaving to the rafters.

The St Patrick’s Day parade has barely even started but the drinking has, en masse. These scenes are hardly surprising. Anyone who grew up in Ireland post 1970 is well versed in how to drown the shamrock.

And if you’ve ever spent a Paddy’s Day anywhere in North America, you know well how that goes. Such is the Paddy’s Day fervour in the States that many pubs now even feature a halfway-to-Paddy’s celebration on Sept 17. Seriously.

It seems everyone wants to be Oirish for a day, and getting wasted is the right of passage to make that happen.

But sher it’s all just a bit of good-natured fun, right?  This is true to a certain extent, and I’m the…