The History of Saint Patrick’s Day

The 17th of March is the Irish national holiday, also known as Saint Patrick’s Day. Originally the 17th of March honoured the death of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, however it has now evolved into a day for celebrating Irish culture and heritage. Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated worldwide with enormous parades, traditional Irish music & dancing and a lot of green.

To give a little bit of Saint Patrick’s backstory, Saint Patrick was kidnapped from Roman Britain and taken to Pagan Ireland in the 4th Century. After spending time as a shepherd, he escaped to Roman Britain, but did however return to Pagan Ireland sometime later with a mission to convert The Irish to Christianity. This is where the connection between Saint Patrick’s Day and The Shamrock (Ireland’s National Plant) came about as Saint Patrick used the three leaves of the shamrock to explain The Holy Trinity to The Pagan Irish in hopes to convert them. It is also said that Saint Patrick banished ‘the snakes’ out of Ireland but it is believed that this was an analogy relating the Paganistic Traditions being replaced with Christianity.

In modern times, Saint Patrick’s Day is a predominantly secular holiday which celebrates Irishness, in Ireland and all over the world due to the large Irish diaspora living outside of Ireland. In North America, cities such as Boston held the first Saint Patrick’s Day parade outside of Ireland in 1773 and Chicago now dye the river green every year as they paid homage to their large Irish population. Fun Fact: the colour blue was originally associated with Saint Patrick and is the official colour of Ireland but over the centuries it changed to green, many attribute it to Ireland’s green landscape, hence the nickname ‘The Emerald Isle’.

Saint Patrick’s Day is the most renowned day for celebrating Irish culture and heritage around the globe, however, celebrations in Ireland begin on the 1st of March with Irish language week (Seachtain na Gaeilge) /ʃæxtanʲ na ɡelʲɟɛ/. It is the beginning of a festival which was established to encourage the use of the Irish Language amongst the Irish population, in Ireland and abroad. The festival used to last only one week but due to the popularity, it was extended to two weeks, ending on Saint Patrick’s Day. A multitude of Irish language and cultural events take place during the two weeks such as traditional Irish dancing (céilithe), traditional Irish music sessions and Irish language meet-ups of all competencies.

Beananchtaí na Féile Pádraig!