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Photo by: Vanessa Hall

I have only a smidgen of Irish in me, but I’m not one to turn down a pub-crawl — especially on St. Patrick’s Day. After all, it would be rude to great-grandma Moore. So while it’s barely half past the wee hours, I’m already saddled up to the bar at a little joint called the Monkey Bar, part of the Green Monkey Dive Shop, scanning the mélange of green T-shirts hobnobbing around the small room. Dublin’s Martin Healy Band is perched on the back patio playing a string of Irish jigs; my saucy American compatriots are competing in an undeclared triathlon of Guinness chugging, knee slapping and bad dancing; and as we all raise our frothy pints to toast our favorite drinking occasion, a salty dog offers a well-rehearsed verse:

May the winds of fortune sail you;
May you sail a gentle sea;
May it always be the other guy
Who says, “This drink’s on me.

Cheers to that! Basking in the taste of cold beer and warm company, I reflect on how this rowdy pub scene must be playing out all over the Irish world today. But looking out across the patio, I’m pretty sure my slant on the festivities is a rare one, since I can see Nevis beyond the bay.

The tiny island of Montserrat may not spring to mind when conjuring authentic places to celebrate an Irish drinking holiday. But the 4,500-odd residents of this other Emerald Isle are zealous about their Irish heritage — the British colony is, in fact, the only place outside of Ireland to recognize St. Patrick’s Day as an official public holiday. And rather than limit themselves to one day of fun and games, these rollicking folks go for it all week long.

The story of the island’s Irish heritage dates to 1632, when a band of persecuted Irish Catholics fled Protestant St. Kitts and settled among the Arawak and Carib tribes on Montserrat. Within just a half-century, Irishmen had fathered the majority of the population, laying the groundwork for strong Irish influences in Montserrat’s spiritual, cultural and political ethos. But ancestry isn’t the only reason Montserrat celebrates the holiday: March 17, 1768 — St. Patrick’s Day — also marked a violent slave uprising that, though unsuccessful, inspired a mass of slaves to rally for their freedom for decades to come.

These days, the holiday has come to represent a sort of underdog kinship — a palpable in-it-togetherness — and these folks definitely know a thing or two about resilience. Like many Caribbean islands, Montserrat is a product of tectonics, but unlike her sister isles, a supremely active volcano still dominates most of the island’s southern half today: “Madame” Soufriere.

“We know she’s a lady,” local tour guide Jadine Glitzenhirn says. “What else could she be? She’s moody and loves to show off.”

And how. At her most volatile, between 1995 and 1998, the peak erupted in a period of showstopping pyroclastic activity, devastating the capital of Plymouth under layers of ash and mud. Even this week, she’s been huffing and puffing ominous plumes over all of the revelry — the wallflower aching to join in.

During the volcanic crisis, the majority of the island’s 11,000-strong population fled to Europe or other Caribbean nations, but the eruptions instilled an unshakable sense of community among those who stayed behind. Those few Montserratians and the small legion of expats who have since joined them today possess an irrepressible spirit (and let’s face it, a little bit of tiny-island stir-craziness) that’s bubbling over with affection for their island and culture — even for their mercurial Soufriere. St. Patrick’s Day, in all of its usual pomp and boozy pageantry, just happens to be a perfect time to show it. Every activity, from the come-as-you-are parade in Little Bay to the kooky, company picnic-like Community Fun Run in Salem, is steeped in homegrown, small-town West Indian charm. Carnival it’s not, but where else can you party with Caribbean islanders clad in tartan?

And if I had any lingering doubt about the island’s Irish heritage after all the fun and games of the week, it was put to rest on St. Patrick’s Eve at a special concert by the Emerald Community Singers, an assembly of local cabaret performers, chanting a sardonic tune about a Brit with unusual stamina:

An Englishman who lasts till 3,
That’s something I’ve never seen ...

An affinity for drinking and a perverse sense of humor at the expense of the English? Yep, these folks are definitely Irish. Great-grandma Moore would have liked it here just fine.

This year’s festivities are scheduled for March 13-20. Daily flights from Antigua are available on Winair (866-466-0410; fly-winair.com), and on-demand charter flights from Anguilla, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts and Tortola are available on FlyMontserrat (644-491-3434; flymontserrat.com). Contact Monair Ports Services (664-491-2533) for info on ferry schedules and fares. Surf over to Montserrat Tourist Board (visitmontserrat.com) for more details on festivities.