Naturally, things have changed a lot on St. Patrick’s Day since I landed here in 1972 with my trio, The Burren Flora. We were unprepared, entering into the fray of green employment, singing and performing the songs of our recently abdicated homeland.

They were different songs than the audience was used to. The “Toor La Loor La” world into which we landed required some fast adjustment. Three long-haired, mid-20s hippie colleens from Ireland were in for a rude awakening.

It was a “Danny Boy” world, nothing wrong with that but we would have been sneered off the stage if we ever attempted to sing it at that time in Dublin. The drift was toward pure tradition, there was suspicion around sentimental — cry in your St. Patrick’s Day beer or “If Ever You Go Across the Sea to Ireland” — tourist trap O’ Irish Eyes repertoire.

The Clancy brothers had left their mark, the Wild Rovers sailed from Galway Bay and landed on The Shores of Amerikay.

We flew into Boston from Dublin on March 2, 1972, the month of the great saint himself. We were recruited by Tommy Makem, a famous teetotaler, the only one I ever heard of who owned his own pub in New York.

We were here and there a bit of an anomaly ourselves: three girls, not yet women, harmony singers with an Irish harp and a naive lack of cop on about what we’d let ourselves in for.

It was some 25 years before harp playing was in my own future.

We managed to keep it together with a fast dive into predictable Paddy’s Day patriotic pablum. I think we sang “A Nation Once Again” six times.

St. Patrick’s Day that first year was a blur of five 45-minute sets at The Harp and Bard in Danvers. We were entitled to one drink per night and were coached by the other ex-pat performers how to make the most of it, the best alcoholic bang for the free buck. Order a stinger, said Billy Carson, a brilliant performer originally from Glasgow, married into Irish Ballads and The Craic by way of his Tipperary wife Mary.

“What’s a stinger?” we asked, encouraged by a veteran with experience, making the most of it.

We ordered the Harp and Bard version, Cointreau and brandy. A head-spinning, vertigo-inducing potent brew that had us staggering on foot back to our apartment.

It was on those nights we nearly died for Ireland the next morning after one stinger.

Many St. Patrick’s days later, after the pandemic shuttered the linchpins of Irish social culture — the pub — some drinking habits may have changed.

My own included. I noticed articles recently in the Irish Times about the new sober sides. Younger people writing about finally throwing off their non-drinking, semi-pariah status and outing themselves at parties as non-drinkers, rejecting the shame associated with saying, “No thank you, I don’t drink.”

Many of the new non-drinkers are not alcoholics in recovery but people choosing to pursue a more healthy lifestyle that doesn’t include alcohol. On a recent visit to Dublin, my friend Cora produced a couple of versions of non-alcoholic Prosecco. She gamely toasted the two of us, raising hers in fealty with mine.

“I don’t drink during the week,” she said.

Cutting back, the other version of a new relationship with alcohol.

I’ve always enjoyed a jar. I would typically put out a couple of bottles of wine at rehearsal. Irish music and culture has followed me all the days of my U.S. life. Usually with a good glass or two of wine.

That is, until my daughter Jennie became pregnant. She and her husband Yanis left their too-small apartment in Jamaica Plain during the pandemic, a pivot to remote working at home — the home she grew up in.

We had four months of wining and dining until they bought and moved to their own house a few streets away.

My poor husband, the non-drinking Ashanazi Jew, suffered along with us. It’s true, 40% don’t have the enzymes to metabolize alcohol. I’ve witnessed him, in a great show of good-sport willingness and esprit de corps, belly up to the bar and order a martini. Only two sips later, looking gray in the face and handing it over to me.

“I’m sick, here you are!”

“I don’t drink martinis,” I say.

“Now that’s another 12 bucks down the drain,” he says.

“I’m going to try my Irish Drinking School of Inoculation on you,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“I’ll give you a drop every day, till the drop increases and becomes a full drink. It will take about two weeks. Are you willing?”

“Like they do for peanut allergies?” he asked. “Be careful you don’t kill me.”

“It’s just a gradual inoculation,” I said. “By St. Patrick’s Day you’ll be swilling it back with the rest of us.”

The Ashanazis won in the end. A noble try, with cases of saccharine pink Cosmo mix delivered by Amazon, he did his best and then gave up, back to gray in the face, started to drink the horrible rat poison pink stuff, cold turkey, without the vodka.

My own drinking ceased when Jennie’s first pregnancy was announced last January. That is an alcohol red flag.

“No drinking until baby Mae arrives in September,” said Jennie.

“I’ll take the pledge with you,” I said.

Memories floated back of Catholic girlhood confirmation pledge induction into the Pioneers. I was not quite ready to wear the pin. I’ll need to perfect my Irish and sport the fáinne as well, that was then the other badge of Irishness.

Now one year later, I can say with some authority I don’t drink, I have more energy, I never have to buy Solpedeine at the airport in Dublin or worry about getting into the car after one glass of wine.

Maybe on St. Patrick’s Day I’ll get some of those green gummy bears they’re selling at the proliferating legal marijuana dispensaries.

Just kidding. I’m fine with water.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Rosemary Caine is a native of Ireland, founder of Wilde Irish Women, a harpist and composer. She lives in Greenfield.

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