After today's job, they're deserving. But Palm Sunday is coming, and if we don't rehearse this week, they won't be deserving.

Totally understand. I have lost three weeks of rehearsals because of snow and ice. Had to cancel the new Easter anthem I wanted to do, and am recycling materials we have sung before. Not much choice, since I can't make up the loss between now and Easter.

I get St. Patrick's Day off. >:P

had the nerve to complain about how we're going to be singing so much during Holy Week.

That's as natural as breathing. EF isn't doing a separate Triduum, so they don't have that to complain about. So what am I doing? Helping out somebody no longer welcome here in HIS Triduum. Ought to have my head examined.

We are looking forward to "singing so much during Holy Week." What's the downside? From Reproaches to the Exsultet, we are going to sing it all - and have a wonderful time in the process. No apologies will be offered to complainers.

Why not go out for some green beer after rehearsal?

True enough, from what I can gather from the Google garble.
Ní raibh Pádraig fiú na hÉireann.

He wasn't Irish, and he didn't celebrate from the Tridentine missal, or the 1962 missal, either. His liturgies were more like the eastern, as best I can tell. And, there are still snakes in Ireland, and they all walk on two legs - or so my Irish friends tell me. LOL.

Everything can't be blamed on Vatican II.

Are you sure?

There has been a dramatic collapse in Catholicism in Ireland. Realities differ somewhat in the North (which is part of the UK) and in the south (The Republic). I live in the south. Though many children are still baptised (maybe about 75%? ) the most noticeable decline in sacraments is in marriage. Getting married in Church counts as your civil marriage too, twenty years ago about 1 in 20 were done in a registry office, the rest would be Catholic with a small number of other Christian churches. Currently 1 in 3 marriages are now civil ceremony only, and many more do not get married at all. The number of children growing up in single parent headed households is now about 1 in 3, a huge change.
Catholic schools still predominate, though other school types are growing. The situation is confused by the fact that we technically all go to private schools, run by a 'patron' who typically is the local bishop, with the local church community having supplied the land and contributed to the building, upkeep and ongoing costs. However teacher salaries are paid for by the state, who also provide a national curriculum. Catholic Schools are a mixed bag from quite Catholic, to quite secular - the main problems being the lack of faith among teachers, and an absolutely appalling RE curriculum approved by the Bishops. The very secular government is applying increasing pressure on the Church to hand over schools to state control and secularisation, claiming it is to foster choice, although parents surveyed still want Catholic education large numbers, ad non-Catholic children (such as our new immigrant Muslim population) prefer religious schools to secular ones, even if it is a Catholic school. Immigration from Poland has also helped our Catholic population.
Children are prepared for sacraments in school, with minimal parish input, though the dioceses have been trying to increase that in recent years. They make first confession, communion at 8, and confirmation at 12, before leaving primary school for secondary where they will complete their education. The vast majority will have no actual practise of their faith in between or after these events.
In terms of Sunday Mass practice - figures for this continually lag a few years behind, but looking at them and the current figures our parish prepares for the diocese, as well as my experience around the country - overall practice is probably less than 10%, in a suburban Dublin parish that is more likely to be 3-4%, with some less than 1%. A good country parish might get up to 15%. However looking across the age groups, it is easy to see the age profile is very heavily weighted towards the older age groups, with very few young people. Once families with children making sacraments leave even that minimal contact, they typically disappear, it is not unusual to see a congregation with maybe two or three families with young kids, and no one else under the age of 60.
There are some wonderful young priests who managed to escape the continual purging of the orthodox from the seminaries. My archbishop said, in a recent public lecture, that he didn't understand his young priests, they are so conservative. For him there is not much to get his head around, as he has practically none. Our priestly population is going over a demographic cliff.
The Association of Catholic Priests claims to have one in three priests in its rank - they agitate for the usual liberal causes. On the other hand, the Confraternity of Catholic Priests is growing to support faithful orthodox priests, the Dominicans are having a resurgence in vocations and a renewal in terms of orthodoxy, there are new fledgling communities of monks and nuns, all good, groups like Institute of Christ the kings for example, or Dom Mark Kirby's new Benedictines.
In society in general, the media and the cognoscenti are continually, and often viciously anti-Catholic. We have practically no conservative voices in politics or the media. In the last twenty years we have introduced no-fault divorce, abortion(in an odd, restricted sort of way), civil partnerships for same sex couples,and we are about to have a referendum to bring in gay marriage (which is likely to pass). Use of contraception is widespread, including abortifacient contraception. Our abortion legislation is odd and complicated, most people travel to England for this, which has meant our numbers are lower than the appalling rates in Britain. There is growing political support for more liberal abortion provision here.
The revelations about Child sexual abuse were appalling. The actual impact is hard to say - they are certainly widely cited as the reason many have stopped being Catholic, but is that true, or is it just the most ready reason in a basically secularising society? Hard to tell.
However - there was a time when saying Mass was illegal, being a priest was punishable by death, and our last Bishop was hauled off to Tyburn for martyrdom. We have a lot to be thankful for- and God wins in the end.
Signs of hope:
orthodox youth evangelisation
outreach on the street of Dublin ( at my old parish)
young Dominicans
but they sing nicely when they get cleaned up
new Benedictines - the author of the Vultus Christi blog Dom Mark Kirby
institute of Christ the king are taking a wrecked old Jesuit church and turning it into a centre of hope and good liturgy, under the direction of the priest who taught these seminarians to chant
and the delightful Franciscan friars of the renewal, also garnering a good number of irish vocations
ploughing a hard path in a very deprived area of limerick city