2 Ways To Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day In Bowie Area

BOWIE, MD — St. Patrick’s Day is Friday this year. Entertainment districts in the Bowie area will be swimming in Kelly green, and perhaps flashing red and blue lights if people don’t behave themselves.

And devout Catholics may have to consult their parish priest before they dig into a plate of corned beef and cabbage. But Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., said that on St. Patrick's Day, Catholics may eat meat to celebrate the occasion.

Some of the places in the Bowie area to celebrate the March 17 holiday are:

• Party with the Crayfish on St. Patrick’s Day: Old Bowie Town Grille 8 p.m.-11 p.m.
• Saint Patrick’s Day Party! Left Of The Dial – Live From Molloy’s Irish Pub! in Gambrills starting at 10 p.m. Molloy’s Irish Pub. bandsintown.com.

(Add any events you know of open to the public in our comments section below!)

Officers will be on the lookout for impaired drivers Friday night across the state.

• Related: MD Police Beef Up Patrols For St. Patrick's Day Weekend

Devout Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent, a sacrifice that recognizes Jesus’ death on the cross on a Friday. Catholics in several suburban Chicago towns can eat the traditional fare without guilt, but the Diocese of Chicago is holding firm.

Whether revelers in cities like heavily Catholic Chicago, one of the most St. Patrick-y cities in the country, go all in with the holiday staple corned beef and cabbage could come down to whether they get special dispensation from the diocese, which has been granted for Catholics in the Baltimore-DC region.

Catholic revelers from Bowie will be happy to learn that Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, has granted Catholics in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, which includes Prince George's County, dispensation from the abstinence from meat on March 17 this year. This extends to any Catholics who are in the diocese during St. Patrick's Day.

"It is not required that anyone make use of this dispensation. Those who do wish to make use of it are encouraged to abstain from meat on some other day as part of their penitential practices during Lent," according to Gregory's decree.