In many years past, I have had an annual Saint Patrick’s Day party complete with Irish stew and many shamrock or other Irish-themed decorations. I even wore a green tinsel wig plus pants that said “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” and a T-shirt that said “Let the Shenanigans Begin.” But of course, that did not happen last year or this year. However, this year I did have a couple of women over for dinner and put up some decorations. There were fabulous cocktails with Bailey’s Irish Cream, crème de menthe, and half-and-half topped with whipped cream and grated chocolate. One of the women brought a delicious salad, and I made slow cooker corned beef and cabbage and chocolate Guinness pudding for dessert. It was a much smaller celebration, but a joyful one. I think in Chicago they even dye the river green. I am not of Irish heritage; part of my lineage is from Scotland. But I am delighted to join the festivities every March 17, a jubilant occasion. Let’s find out more about how it started.
According to Wikipedia, Saint Patrick's Day or the Feast of Saint Patrick is a cultural and religious celebration held on March 17, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. 385 – c. 461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland.
Saint Patrick's Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th century and is observed by the Catholic Church, Anglican Communion — especially the Church of Ireland, Eastern Orthodox Church and Lutheran Church. The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish in general. Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, céilís — a traditional Scottish or Irish social gathering and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. Christians who belong to liturgical denominations also attend church services and historically the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol were lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday's tradition of alcohol consumption.
Saint Patrick's Day is a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador —for provincial government employees and the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, United States, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, especially among ethnic Irish people. Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival. Modern celebrations have been greatly influenced by those of ethnic Irish people, particularly those that developed in North America. However, there has been criticism of Saint Patrick's Day celebrations for having become too commercialized and for fostering negative stereotypes of the Irish people.
Saint Patrick Saint Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Much of what is known about Saint Patrick comes from the “Declaration,” which was allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father was a deacon, and his grandfather was a priest in the Christian church. According to the “Declaration,” at the age of 16, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. It says that he spent six years there working as a shepherd and that during this time, he found God. The “Declaration” says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to take him home. After making his way home, Patrick went on to become a priest. According to tradition, Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The “Declaration” says that he spent many years evangelizing in the northern half of Ireland and converted thousands. Patrick's efforts against the druids — members of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures — were eventually turned into an allegory in which he drove "snakes" out of Ireland, despite the fact that snakes were not known to inhabit the region. Tradition holds that he died on March 17 and was buried at the small Irish town of Downpatrick. Over the following centuries, many legends grew up around Patrick and he became Ireland's foremost saint.
Celebration and traditions Today's Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have been greatly influenced by those that developed among the ethnic Irish people, especially in North America. Until the late 20th century, Saint Patrick's Day was often a bigger celebration among them than it was in Ireland. Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, Irish traditional music sessions and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. There are also formal gatherings such as banquets and dances, although these were more common in the past. Saint Patrick's Day parades began in North America in the 18th century but did not spread to Ireland until the 20th century. The participants generally include marching bands, the military, fire brigades, cultural organizations, charitable organizations, voluntary associations, youth groups, fraternities and so on. However, over time, many of the parades have become more akin to a carnival. More effort is made to use the Irish language, especially in Ireland where the 1st March to St Patrick's Day on March 17 is Seachtain na Gaeilge or "Irish language week."
Since 2010, famous landmarks have been lit up in green on Saint Patrick's Day as part of Tourism Ireland's "Global Greening Initiative" or "Going Green for St Patrick's Day". The Sydney Opera House and the Sky Tower in Auckland were the first landmarks to participate and since then, over 300 landmarks in 50 countries across the globe have gone green for Saint Patrick’s Day.
Christians may also attend church services, and the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day. Perhaps because of this, drinking alcohol – particularly Irish whiskey, beer or cider – has become an integral part of the celebrations. The Saint Patrick's Day custom of "drowning the shamrock" or "wetting the shamrock" was historically popular at the end of the celebrations, especially in Ireland. At the end of the celebrations, a shamrock is put into the bottom of a cup, which is then filled with whiskey, beer or cider. It is then drunk as a toast to Saint Patrick, Ireland or those present. The shamrock would either be swallowed with the drink or taken out and tossed over the shoulder for good luck.
Irish government ministers travel abroad on official visits to various countries around the globe to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day and promote Ireland. The most prominent of these is the visit of the Irish Taoiseach or Irish Prime Minister with the U.S. President which happens on or around Saint Patrick's Day. Traditionally, the Taoiseach presents the U.S. President a Waterford crystal bowl filled with shamrocks. This tradition began when in 1952, Irish Ambassador to the U.S. John Hearne sent a box of shamrocks to President Harry S. Truman. From then on, it became an annual tradition of the Irish ambassador to the U.S. to present the Saint Patrick's Day shamrock to an official in the U.S. President's administration, although on some occasions the shamrock presentation was made by the Irish Taoiseach or Irish President to the U.S. President personally in Washington, such as when President Dwight D. Eisenhower met Taoiseach John A. Costello in 1956 and President Seán T. O’Kelly in 1959 or when President Ronald Reagan met Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald in 1986 and Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey in 1987. However, it was only after the meeting between Taoiseach Albert Reynols and President Bill Clinton in 1994 that the presenting of the shamrock ceremony became an annual event for the leaders of both countries for Saint Patrick's Day. The presenting of the shamrock ceremony was cancelled in 2020 due to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wearing green On Saint Patrick's Day, it is customary to wear shamrocks, green clothing or green accessories. Saint Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish. This story first appears in writing in 1726, though it may be older. In pagan Ireland, three was a significant number, and the Irish had many triple deities, a fact that may have aided St. Patrick in his evangelization efforts. Writer Patricia Monaghan says there is no evidence that the shamrock was sacred to the pagan Irish. However, academic folklorist Dr. Jack Santino speculates that it may have represented the regenerative powers of nature and was recast in a Christian context — icons of St. Patrick often depict the saint "with a cross in one hand and a sprig of shamrocks in the other." Roger Homan writes, "We can perhaps see St. Patrick drawing upon the visual concept of the triskeles when he uses the shamrock to explain the Trinity."
The first association of the color green with Ireland is from the 11th century pseudo-historical book “Lebor Gabála Érenn” or “The Book of the Taking of Ireland,” which forms part of the Mythological Cycle in Irish mythology and describes the story of Goídel Glas who is credited as the eponymous ancestor of the Gaels and creator of the Goidelic languages — Irish, Scottish, Gaelic, Manx. In the story, Goídel Glas — who was the son of Scota and Niul — was bitten by a snake and was saved from death by Moses placing his staff on the snakebite. As a reminder of the incident he would retain a green mark that would stay with him, and he would lead his people to a land that would be free of snakes. This is emphasized in his name Goídel which was anglicized to the word Gaelic and Glas which is the Irish word for green. Another story from the “Lebor Gabála Érenn” written after the adventures of Goídel Glas refers to Íth climbing the tower in reference to the Tower of Hercules — his father Breogán builds in Brigantia or modern day Corunna in Galicia Spain on a winter’s day and is so captivated by the sight of a beautiful green island in the distance that he must set sail immediately. This story also introduces three national personifications of Ireland, Banba, Fódla and Ériu, matron goddess of Ireland.
The color green was further associated with Ireland from the 1640s, when the green harp flag was used by the Irish Catholic Confederation. Socialist and trade union leader James Connolly would later describe this flag prior to the 1916 Easter Rising, as representing "the sacred emblem of Ireland's unconquered soul." Green ribbons and shamrocks have been worn on St. Patrick's Day since at least the 1680s. The Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick, an Irish fraternity founded in about 1750, adopted green as its color. However, when the Order of St. Patrick — an Anglo-Irish chivalric order — was founded in 1783, it adopted blue as its color, which led to blue being associated with St. Patrick. During the 1790s, green would become associated with Irish nationalism, due to its use by the United Irishmen. This was a republican organization led mostly by Protestants but with many Catholic members that launched a rebellion in 1798 against British rule. Ireland was described as "the Emerald Isle" for the first time in print in "When Erin First Rose" in 1795, a poem by co-founder of the United Irishmen William Drennan, which stresses the historical importance of green to the Irish. The phrase "wearing of the green" comes from a song of the same name, which laments United Irishmen supporters being persecuted for wearing green. The late 19th and early 20th centuries have seen the re-emergence of Irish cultural symbols — such as the Irish language, Irish mythology, Irish folklore and the color green — through the Gaelic Revival and the Irish Literary Revival which served to stir Irish nationalist sentiment. The influence of green was more prominently observable in the flags of the 1916 Easter Rising such as the Sunburst Flag, Starry Plough Banner and the Proclamation flag of the Irish Republic which was flown over the General Post Office in Dublin together with the Irish tricolor or national flag of Ireland. When Ireland did achieve its independence in 1922, the first act by the new Saorstát Éireann or Irish Free State government was to order all the post boxes to be painted “Saorstát green” under the slogan "Green paint for a green people;" in 1924, the government introduced a green Irish passport for Irish citizens, and it would remain this color until the introduction of the burgundy-colored European passports in 1985. Throughout these centuries, the color green and its association with St. Patrick's Day grew.
The wearing of the St. Patrick's Day Cross was also a popular custom in Ireland until the early 20th century. These were a Celtic Christian cross made of paper that was "covered with silk or ribbon of different colors and a bunch or rosette of green silk in the center."
Celebration in Ireland Saint Patrick's feast day, as a kind of national day, was already being celebrated by the Irish in Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. In later times, he became more and more widely seen as the patron of Ireland. Saint Patrick's feast day was finally placed on the universal liturgical calendar in the Catholic Church due to the influence of Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding in the early 1600s. Saint Patrick's Day thus became a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. It is also a feast day in the Church of Ireland, which is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church calendar avoids the observance of saints' feasts during certain solemnities, moving the saint's day to a time outside those periods. St. Patrick's Day is occasionally affected by this requirement, when March 17 falls during Holy Week. This happened in 1940, when St. Patrick's Day was observed on April 3 to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and again in 2008, where it was officially observed on March 15. St. Patrick's Day will not fall within Holy Week again until 2160. However, the popular festivities may still be held on March 17 or on a weekend near to the feast day. In 1903, St. Patrick's Day became an official public holiday in Ireland. This was thanks to the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, an act of the United Kingdom Parliament, introduced by Irish member of Parliament James O’Mara. He later introduced the law which required that public houses be shut on March 17, a provision that was later deemed unnecessary and was repealed in the 1970s.
The first St Patrick's Day parade in Ireland was held in Waterford in 1903. The week of St. Patrick's Day 1903 had been declared Irish Language Week by the Gaelic League, and in Waterford they opted to have a procession on Sunday, March 15. The procession comprised the mayor and members of Waterford Corp., the Trades Hall, the various trade unions and bands which included the Barrack St. Band and the Thomas Francis Meagher Band. The parade began at the premises of the Gaelic League in George's Street and finished in the Peoples Park, where the public was addressed by the mayor and other dignitaries. On Tuesday, March 17, most Waterford businesses — including public houses — were closed and marching bands paraded as they had two days previously. The Waterford Trades Hall had been emphatic that the national holiday be observed.
On St. Patrick's Day 1916, the Irish Volunteers — an Irish nationalist paramilitary organization — held parades throughout Ireland. The authorities recorded 38 St. Patrick's Day parades, involving 6,000 marchers, almost half of whom were said to be armed. The following month, the Irish Volunteers launched the Easter Rising against British rule. This marked the beginning of the Irish revolutionary period and led to the Irish War of Independence and Civil War. During this time, St. Patrick's Day celebrations in Ireland were muted, although the day was sometimes chosen to hold large political rallies. The celebrations remained low-key after the creation of the Irish Free State; the only state-organized observance was a military procession and trooping of the colors, along with an Irish-language mass attended by government ministers. In 1927, the Irish Free State government banned the selling of alcohol on St. Patrick's Day, although it remained legal in Northern Ireland. The ban was not repealed until 1961.
The first official, state-sponsored St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin took place in 1931. On three occasions, parades across the Republic of Ireland have been cancelled from taking place on St. Patrick's Day, with all years involving health and safety reasons. In 2001, as a precaution to the foot-and-mouth outbreak, St. Patrick's Day celebrations were postponed to May and in 2020 and 2021, as a consequence to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, the St. Patrick's Day Parade was cancelled outright. Organizers of the St. Patrick's Day Festival 2021 will instead host virtual events around Ireland on their SPF TV online channel.
In Northern Ireland, the celebration of St. Patrick's Day was affected by sectarian divisions. A majority of the population were Protestant Ulster unionists who saw themselves as British, while a substantial minority were Catholic Irish nationalists who saw themselves as Irish. Although it was a public holiday, Northern Ireland's unionist government did not officially observe St. Patrick's Day. During the conflict known as the Troubles from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, public St. Patrick's Day celebrations were rare and tended to be associated with the Catholic community. In 1976, loyalists detonated a car bomb outside a pub crowded with Catholics celebrating St. Patrick's Day in Dungannon; four civilians were killed and many injured. However, some Protestant unionists attempted to “re-claim” the festival, and in 1985 the Orange Order held its own St. Patrick's Day parade. Since the end of the conflict in 1998, there have been cross-community St. Patrick's Day parades in towns throughout Northern Ireland, which have attracted thousands of spectators.
In the mid-1990s the government of the Republic of Ireland began a campaign to use St. Patrick's Day to showcase Ireland and its culture. The government set up a group called St. Patrick's Festival, with the aims:
- To offer a national festival that ranks among all the greatest celebrations in the world.
- To create energy and excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement and marketing activity.
- To provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent — and those who sometimes wish they were Irish — to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations.
- To project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal.
The first St. Patrick's Festival was held on March 17, 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long; more than 675,000 people attended the 2009 parade. Overall, 2009's five-day festival saw almost 1 million visitors, who took part in festivities that included concerts, outdoor theatre performances and fireworks. The Skyfest fireworks display which ran from 2006 to 2012 formed the centerpiece of the St. Patrick's Festival.
The topic of the 2004 St. Patrick's Symposium was "Talking Irish," during which the nature of Irish identity, economic success and the future were discussed. Since 1996, there has been a greater emphasis on celebrating and projecting a fluid and inclusive notion of "Irishness" rather than an identity based around traditional religious or ethnic allegiance. The week around St. Patrick's Day usually involves Irish language speakers using more Irish during Seachtain na Gaeilge or "Irish Language Week."
Christian leaders in Ireland have expressed concern about the secularization of St. Patrick's Day. In “The Word” magazine's March 2007 issue, Father Vincent Twomey wrote, "It is time to reclaim St. Patrick's Day as a church festival." He questioned the need for "mindless, alcohol-fueled revelry" and concluded that "it is time to bring the piety and the fun together."
As well as Dublin, many other cities, towns and villages in Ireland hold their own parades and festivals, including Cork, Belfast, Derry, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford.
The biggest celebrations outside the cities are in Downpatrick, County Down, where Saint Patrick is said to be buried. The shortest St. Patrick's Day parade in the world formerly took place in Dripsey, County Cork. The parade lasted just 76.8 feet and traveled between the village's two pubs. The annual event began in 1999 but ceased after five years when one of the two pubs closed.
Celebration in England In England, the British Royals traditionally present bowls of shamrocks to members of the Irish Guards, a regiment in the British Army, following QueenAlexandra introducing the tradition in 1901. Since 2012, the Duchess of Cambridge has presented the bowls of shamrocks to the Irish Guards. While female royals are often tasked with presenting the bowls of shamrocks, male royals have also undertaken the role, such as King Geore VI in 1950 to mark the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Irish Guards, and in 2016, the Duke of Cambridge in place of his wife. Fresh shamrocks are presented to the Irish Guards, regardless of where they are stationed and are flown in from Ireland. While some St. Patrick's Day celebrations could be conducted openly in Britain pre 1960s, this would change following the commencement by the IRA's bombing campaign on mainland Britain, and as a consequence, this resulted in a suspicion of all things Irish and those who supported them which led to people of Irish descent wearing a sprig of shamrock on St. Patrick's Day in private or attending specific events. Today after many years following the Good Friday Agreement, people of Irish descent openly wear a sprig of shamrock to celebrate their Irishness. Christian denominations in Great Britain observing his feast day include the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.
Birmingham holds the largest St. Patrick's Day parade in Britain with a city center parade over a two-mile route through the city center. The organizers describe it as the third biggest parade in the world after Dublin and New York.
Since 2002, London has had an annual St. Patrick's Day parade which takes place on weekends around the 17th, usually in Trafalgar Square. In 2008, the water in the Trafalgar Square fountains was dyed green. In 2020 the parade was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Liverpool has the highest proportion of residents with Irish ancestry of any English city. This has led to a longstanding celebration on St. Patrick's Day in terms of music, cultural events and the parade.
Manchester hosts a two-week Irish festival in the weeks prior to Saint Patrick's Day. The festival includes an Irish market based at the city's town hall which flies the Irish tricolor opposite the Union Flag and a large parade, as well as a large number of cultural and learning events throughout the two-week period.
Celebration in Russia The first St. Patrick's Day parade in Russia took place in 1992. Since 1999, there has been a yearly St. Patrick's Day festival in Moscow and other Russian cities. The official part of the Moscow parade is a military-style parade and is held in collaboration with the Moscow government and the Irish embassy in Moscow. The unofficial parade is held by volunteers and resembles a carnival. In 2014, Moscow Irish Week was celebrated from March 12-23, which includes St. Patrick's Day on March 17. Over 70 events celebrating Irish culture in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh and Volgograd were sponsored by the Irish Embassy, Moscow city government and other organizations. In 2017, the Russian Orthodox Church added the feast day of Saint Patrick to its liturgical calendar to be celebrated on March 30.
Celebration on International Space Station Astronauts on board the International Space Station have celebrated the festival in different ways. Irish American Catherine Coleman played a 100-year-old flute belonging to Matt Molloy and a tin whistle belonging to Paddy Moloney, both members of the Irish music group The Chieftains, while floating weightless in the space station on Saint Patrick's Day in 2011. Her performance was later included in a track called "The Chieftains in Orbit" on the group's album “Voice of Ages.”Chris Hadfield took photographs of Ireland from Earth orbit and a picture of himself wearing green clothing in the space station, posting them online on St. Patrick's Day in 2013. He also posted online a recording of himself singing "Danny Boy" in space.
Celebration in Canada One of the longest-running and largest St. Patrick's Day parades in North America occurs each year in Montreal, whose city flag includes a shamrock in its lower-right quadrant. The yearly celebration has been organized by the United Irish Societies of Montreal since 1929. The parade has been held yearly without interruption since 1824. St. Patrick's Day itself, however, has been celebrated in Montreal since as far back as 1759 by Irish soldiers in the Montreal Garrison following the British conquest of New France. In Saint John, New Brunswick, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated as a week-long celebration. Shortly after the JP Collins Celtic Festival is an Irish festival celebrating Saint John's Irish heritage. The festival is named for a young Irish doctor James Patrick Collins who worked on Partridge Island — Saint John County quarantine station tending to sick Irish immigrants before he died there himself. In Manitoba, the Irish Association of Manitoba runs a yearly three-day festival of music and culture based around St Patrick's Day. In 2004, the Celtic Fest Vancouver Society organized its first yearly festival in downtown Vancouver to celebrate the Celtic nations and their cultures. This event, which includes a parade, occurs each year during the weekend nearest St. Patrick's Day. In Quebec City, there was a parade from 1837 to 1926. The Quebec City St. Patrick’s Day parade returned in 2010 after more than 84 years. For the occasion, a portion of the New York Police Department Pipes and Drums were present as special guests. There has been a parade held in Toronto since at least 1863. There is a large parade in the city's downtown on the Sunday before March 17.
The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team was known as the Toronto St. Patricks from 1919 to 1927 and wore green jerseys. In 1999, when the Maple Leafs played on St. Patrick's Day, they wore green St Patrick's retro uniforms. Some groups, notably Guinness, have lobbied to make St. Patrick's Day a national holiday. In March 2009, the Calgary Tower changed its top exterior lights to new green CFL bulbs just in time for St. Patrick's Day. Part of an environmental non-profit organization's campaign — Project Porchlight, the green represented environmental concerns. Approximately 210 lights were changed in time for St. Patrick's Day and resembled a leprechaun's hat. After a week, white CFLs took their place. The change was estimated to save the Calgary Tower some $12,000 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 104 tons.
Celebration in the United States St. Patrick's Day — while not a legal holiday in the United States — is nonetheless widely recognized and observed throughout the country as a celebration of Irish and Irish American culture. Celebrations include prominent displays of the color green, religious observances, numerous parades and copious consumption of alcohol. The holiday has been celebrated in what is now the U.S since 1601. In 2020, for the first time in over 250 years, the parade in New York City, the largest in the world, was postponed due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
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