St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin is a lot like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Minus the beads, bared breasts and beer consumed on the streets. And the warm weather. And exceptional live music. (The only traditional tunes that my husband Sean and I heard were from a middle-aged man playing a recorder in a hot, packed pub. And he played quite badly.)

What wasn’t absent were the enormous crowds and tremendous police presence. After a series of violent fights on St. Patrick’s Day 2004 Dublin now imports about 800 police officers from around the country. On every block we saw 5 to 10 ‘gardai’ in their flourescent yellow jackets, waiting to spring into action. Most often they seemed to give directions to confused and/or drunk tourists. (Tuesday’s papers indicated that they arrested around a dozen car thieves-arsonists who set the stolen autos on fire.)

Celebrants there were many. Since Ireland has banned smoking in bars and restaurants, smokers clustered around the front entrances and along the sidewalks. Inside the pubs were wall-to-wall revelers. At one point we were relegated to the third floor hallway of a four-story pub. Forget about going up to the rooftop or back down the stairs. Just drink your pint and appreciate having a spot to stand with your Guinness in hand.

Daytime was no quieter. The parade drew roughly 650,000 spectators, all decked out in fuzzy, green top hats, face paint and ‘Kiss me – I’m Irish’ T-shirts. The parade began at noon at Parnell Square on the north side and ended by St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Patrick Street, where we stood. At one point Sean and I slipped into the 11th century cathedral to check out the final resting place of Jonathan Swift, former dean of the cathedral and author of ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ Pleasant way to kill 20 minutes before the festivities began.

As with Mardi Gras, there were loads of colorful floats and marching bands. No beads or — as with the 2005 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New Orleans – painful potatoes and cabbages hurled from above. There were, however, live trapeze artists as well as beautiful silk balloons bobbing into the crowds.

With energy — ‘green’ energy — as this year’s theme we were treated to floats featuring the sun, wind, oil derricks, electricity (a giant red robot accompanied by a heavy metal band! talk about electrifying!) and balloons of giant dragons, fish, bugs and owls. We suspect that the dragons came courtesy of Scotland and the Loch Ness monster. All that fire breathing power finally harnassed and used for good, eh?