March 11, 2014
by Andy Saks
St. Patrick’s Day is a great holiday for giving toasts, especially for those with public speaking anxiety.
Why? The holiday’s focus on drinking gives you four advantages:
Your St. Patrick’s Day will go better if you wear the hat and drink the beer, not the other way around.
1. Toasts are nice and short, so you don’t have to talk a lot
2. Toasts are sweet and funny (some even rhyme!) which makes them fun to deliver
3. You’ll likely be buzzed, which will lower your speaking anxiety
4. Your audience will likely be toasted, so they’ll love anything you say!
While researching this post I was surprised to find many St. Patrick’s Day toasts are pretty bland, even depressing.
To save you from reading them on this festive occasion, I’ve collected the seven sweetest, funniest St. Patrick’s Day toasts I could find for you to choose from.
So breathe deep, smile big, put on your best Irish accent, raise your glass of green beer, and lead your table in a great St. Patrick’s Day toast!
Or better yet: bring all the toasts, and let everyone at your table give one!
RELATED POST: Best Thanksgiving quotes for your toast
Saint Patrick was a gentleman,
who through strategy and stealth,
drove all the snakes from Ireland,
here’s a toasting to his health.
But not too many toastings
lest you lose yourself, and then
forget the good Saint Patrick
and see all those snakes again!
Feeling daring? Finish with this Irish benediction:
Beannachtam na Feile Padraig!
(“Happy St. Patrick’s Day!”)
Here’s to a long life and a merry one.
a quick death and an easy one
a pretty girl and an honest one
a cold beer – and another one!
When we drink, we get drunk.
When we get drunk, we fall asleep.
When we fall asleep, we commit no sin.
When we commit no sin, we go to heaven.
So, let’s all get drunk, and go to heaven!
Here’s to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking.
If you cheat, may you cheat death.
If you steal, may you steal a woman’s heart.
If you fight, may you fight for a brother.
And if you drink, may you drink with me.
Here’s to women’s kisses,
and to whiskey, amber clear;
not as sweet as a woman’s kiss,
but a damn sight more sincere!
There are many good reasons for drinking.
One has just entered my head.
If a man doesn’t drink when he’s living,
how the hell can he drink when he’s dead?
May the winds of fortune sail you.
May you sail a gentle sea.
May it always be the other guy
who says, “The drinks are on me!”
Got a great St. Patrick’s Day toast? Got a toasting story to tell?
Share them below in the “Comments” field!
ABOUT THE BLOGGER
Presentation expert and St. Patrick’s Day fan Andy Saks
Andy Saks owns and runs Spark Presentations, a private company founded in 1998 that provides presentation skills training and speech coaching for executives, salespeople, marketers and other businesspeople, plus booth staff training for trade show exhibitors.
Spark also books professional presenters and public speakers to represent its clients at high-profile events, in roles like keynote speaker, trade show booth presenter, master of ceremonies (emcee) and auctioneer, as well as on camera talent and voice talent.
Spark’s client list includes large corporations like AT&T, Best Buy, FedEx, Hyundai, Intel, Kimberly-Clark, Olympus, Owens-Corning, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and Volvo; high-tech industry players like AMD, Atrion, Citrix, Gigamon, and Symantec; service organizations like Vistage, 1nService and NERCOMP; and New England institutions like the Boston Jewish Film Festival.
Andy is also the author of The Presentation Playbook Series, a three-volume set of books that help businesspeople master common presentation situations by building and running speaking “plays” like a coach or player calls a key play in a game.
For more information on Spark services, please contact Andy Saks via email or Spark’s Contact page.
Tags: St. Patrick's Day, Toast
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