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There are few things Marist students love more than a reason to celebrate, and when that reason comes wrapped in green, mud, and the promise of a day spent outside with half the student body, it is almost guaranteed to turn into a story people will keep talking about all week. On Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m., students made their way off campus to the Kappa Sigma house for a Saint Patrick’s Day darty hosted jointly by Kappa Sigma and APD fraternity. For a few hours, one muddy yard in Poughkeepsie turned into the center of the Marist social scene.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a darty is exactly what it sounds like: a day party. It has all the energy of a nighttime event, just with daylight, less mystery, and in this case, way more mud. Saint Patrick’s Day darties are already a tradition in plenty of college towns, but this one especially seemed to bring people out in full force. By the time the party was in full swing, the yard was packed with students dressed in green, laughing, dancing, slipping, and trying their best not to ruin whatever shoes they had made the questionable choice to wear.

To get a better perspective on what went into organizing an event this size, Marist junior and APD member Cole Brink, who serves on the board of the fraternity, was interviewed. From his perspective, the event was one of the better ones they have hosted recently. “With Kappa Sigma’s help, I would say this was definitely one of the more successful darties we’ve had in a while,” Brink said. “The weather conditions were pretty tame aside from all the mud.”

That last part cannot be overstated. The mud was not just a side detail of the day, it was part of the guest list. By the end of the afternoon, it seemed almost impossible to leave without some evidence of it on jeans, shoes, jackets, or legs. Some people managed to avoid disaster better than others, but many were not so lucky. Between the crowd, the damp ground, and the general chaos that naturally comes with a giant outdoor college party, the muddy conditions became one of the defining features of the event.

One of the most memorable moments of the darty belonged to Angel Crespo, who took what might have been the most public fall of the afternoon. Not only did he wipe out in the mud, but the whole thing was caught on camera and quickly reposted all over social media. In classic college fashion, what could have been a humiliating moment turned into one of the funniest stories of the day. Crespo took it well, saying, “Honestly it was the highlight of the darty, I had a million people sending me that video as if I hadn’t just lived it and had the evidence all over my ass.”

That quote says a lot about the overall spirit of the day. Nobody seemed too interested in pretending the event was polished or perfect. In fact, the messiness was part of what made it memorable. It was muddy, loud, packed, and a little ridiculous, which is probably why it worked so well. Everyone seemed to understand the assignment: wear green, show up ready to celebrate, and accept that dignity might not make it home in one piece.

According to Brink, between 500 and 600 students attended the darty, an impressive turnout for an off-campus event. It started at 1 p.m. and wrapped up around 5 p.m., giving students a full afternoon to celebrate. For a school like Marist, where campus life and off-campus life often overlap, that kind of turnout says a lot. It was not just a party for one friend group or one organization. It felt more like one of those rare events where people from all corners of campus somehow ended up in the same place, all participating in the same shared chaos.

Brink also clarified an important detail about how the event was run. “Alcohol was not distributed directly from any of the frats, but everyone was encouraged to bring their own, and many did,” he said. That kind of setup is not unusual for a gathering of this kind, and students clearly came prepared. Still, what seemed to define the atmosphere more than anything was not necessarily what people were drinking, but the energy of the crowd itself. There was a sense that everyone was just excited to be there, outdoors, together, celebrating the upcoming holiday after what had felt like a long stretch of cold weather.

The Saint Patrick’s Day theme was fully embraced. Students showed up dressed head to toe in green, with some going all out in full leprechaun-inspired outfits. It was the kind of commitment to a theme that college students either do very well or not at all, and this crowd definitely leaned into it. Everywhere you looked there was green: green hoodies, green beads, green hats, green jerseys, and likely a few green items people had forgotten they even owned until the occasion demanded it.

Then there was the music, which became its own running joke as the day went on. The DJ played “Rattlin’ Bog” at least six times, which, depending on who you ask, was either the best part of the party or slightly unhinged. Either way, by the end of the darty, pretty much everyone in attendance had the song stuck in their head. It became part of the soundtrack of the afternoon in a way that felt very fitting for the holiday. There is something about hearing the same chaotic Irish folk song over and over while surrounded by hundreds of students in green standing ankle-deep in mud that really captures the strange beauty of a college Saint Patrick’s Day celebration.

What made this darty stand out was not that it was flawless. It was actually the opposite. It was successful because it felt so completely unfiltered. It was a little muddy, a little rowdy, and definitely overcrowded, but those are exactly the details that give campus stories their staying power. People are probably not going to remember every individual conversation they had there, but they will remember the mud, the outfits, the crowd, the music, and of course Angel Crespo’s now infamous fall.

At a school like Marist, where students are always looking for ways to make memories outside the classroom, events like this become part of the social history of a semester. They give people something to laugh about later, something to post about, and something to bring up weeks after the fact with the simple phrase, “Were you at that darty?” This one, hosted by Kappa Sigma and APD, clearly earned its place in that category. Mud and all, it sounds like the kind of afternoon nobody in attendance is going to forget anytime soon.