St. Paddy’s Day revelers flock to Santa Rosa festival

They came by the thousands to Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa on Sunday. Wearing a little or a lot of green, they laid claim to an ostensibly Irish holiday as they celebrated St. Patrick’s Day out in the open air with music, food, drink and a perfect spring day.

Sporting shiny green beads, green sequined bow ties and enough glittery green top hats to mimic some kind of a tiny hat convention, they seemed to revel in the brightness of the sun and the balmy short-sleeve weather after so much recent rainfall.

It was the kind of day just made for the likes of three young friends: Mia Glynn, 8, of Cotati, and Audrey Evans, 9, and Rosemary Clements, 10, both of Petaluma. All are young performers with Petaluma’s Keenan Irish Dance School, whose students took the square for a series of numbers in crisp, colorful costumes and curly haired wigs before mixing in with the crowd.

“We work really hard all year and we get one day to show it off,” Clements said.

Said Glynn, “It makes me feel like we’re in Ireland.”

In another section of the square, Maylana Nelson, 7, of Petaluma watched intently as her mother, Colette Burum, took on Miklos Laszlo in a game of Jenga, using a giant set of precariously balanced wooden blocks to see who could remove the last one before the next move caused the tower to wobble and crash.

It was Burum, 31, for the win, her second in a row, which even surprised her, or so her expression suggested.

“She’s actually doing really good,” her daughter said.

Enjoying a day out with friends from the Coast Guard Training Center in Two Rock, Kelly Crossland, 33, of Rohnert Park was the picture of green, down to her sequined leggings - good twice a year. “Christmas and St. Paddy’s casual,” she said.

She always celebrates St. Patrick’s Day because her birthday comes just two days later, and people by then are often, er, not as eager to celebrate in the aftermath of a holiday often associated so closely with beer, she said.

Amid the crowd of people in “Irish” T-shirts, leprechaun headwear and shamrock stickers, it was a surprise to hear the authenticity in Noelle McGowan’s voice.

Though 20 years in the United States, McGowan, née O’Dowd, is from County Sligo in northwestern Ireland.

She was born not far from O’Dowd Castle, which is why her three daughters - Caighleigh, 3, Fiona, 5, and Kathleen, 7 - so proudly proclaimed their royal heritage upon meeting a stranger Sunday.

“Why we get toys from the leprechaun is because we’re Irish royalty,” Fiona McGowan explained as she licked the green frosting from a chocolate cookie sandwich.

Noelle McGowan, whose family now resides in Rohnert Park, said she had worked as bartender for several years on the Peninsula and was stunned by the patronage “all day long” on St. Patrick’s Day - 7 a.m. to 2 a.m.

“We didn’t do any of this stuff growing up in Ireland at all. We didn’t have green food and green drinks,” she said. “It’s nice, though. It’s nice to see people so in touch with their Irish (roots).”