The Story of St. Patrick’s Day

Is there anything more Irish than St. Patrick’s Day?

No, probably not. This day celebrates everything that is Irish, from their traditions and folklore to leprechauns, luck and the color green! It’s celebrated in cities with large Irish populations around the world, from Chicago to Montreal to London. But did you know that St. Patrick’s Day didn’t start out as a day to wear shamrock stickers and drink copious amounts of green beer? Ok, well you may have figured as much, but do you know how the St. Partick’s Day celebration began?

It all started back in the year 387 in (gasp!) Kilpatrick, Scotland! Yes it’s true, Ireland’s most important saint and probably the most Irish person you can think of, St. Patrick himself was not actually born in Ireland. But no matter, he is the one credited for bringing Christianity to the Irish pagans and in doing so he became the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland.

Converting the locals into Christianity couldn’t have been an easy task, but in less than 30 years, the greater part of Ireland was Catholic. And here’s some St. Patrick’s Day trivia for you – it is believed that he used the Shamrock to represent and explain the Holy Spirit and that’s how the shamrock became the National Flower of Ireland. St. Patrick is also credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland, but nowadays we accept that there never really were any snakes in Ireland, and he likely symbolically drove out the evil from Ireland (Snakes were a common symbol of evil in literature).

St. Patrick died on – you guessed it – March 17. So this weekend, when you’re out at your local Irish pub, take a moment to reflect on the fact that the Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over 1,000 years.

In Dublin, we celebrate his life and heritage with one of the most popular festivals in the world. The 5 days festival includes: music and street performances, parades, funfairs, walking tours, comedy, traditional food (needless to say beer!) and a lot of efforts for greening the most important city venues!  There’s even a St. Patrick’s Day website to help you plan an unforgettable St. Patrick’s Day! We’ll see you there – we’ll be the ones wearing green, and eating bacon and cabbage!

What are your plans this St. Patrick’s Day?