St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for more than 1,000 years. On St. Patrick's Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon.
Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat are traditionally waived and people would dance, drink and feast — on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.
The first parade
The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place not in Ireland but in the United States. Irish soldiers serving in the British army marched through New York City March 17, 1762. The parade and its music helped the soldiers reconnect with their Irish roots as well as fellow Irishmen serving in the army.
Over the next 35 years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of "Irish Aid" societies like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group held annual parades featuring bagpipes and drums.
In 1848, several New York Irish Aid societies united their parades. Today, the New York St. Patrick's Day parade is the world 's oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States, with more than 150,000 participants.
“No Irish need apply”
Until the mid-19th century, most Irish immigrants in America were members of the Protestant middle class. When the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland in 1845, nearly a million poor and uneducated Irish Catholics began pouring into America to escape starvation. Despised for their religious beliefs and funny accents by the American Protestant majority, the immigrants had trouble finding even menial jobs. When Irish Americans took to the streets on St. Patrick's Day to celebrate their heritage, newspapers portrayed them in cartoons as drunk, violent monkeys.
However, the Irish soon realized that their great numbers endowed them with a political power that had yet to be exploited. They started to organize, and their voting block, known as the "green machine," became an important swing vote for political hopefuls. St. Patrick's Day parades became a show of strength for Irish Americans, and a must-attend event for political candidates. In 1948, President Harry Truman attended New York City's parade, a proud moment for the Irish whose ancestors had to fight stereotypes and racial prejudice to find acceptance in America.
“Wearing of the green” goes global
Today, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by people of all backgrounds in the United States, Canada and Australia. Although North America is home to the largest events, the holiday has been celebrated in other locations far from Ireland, including Japan, Singapore and Russia.
In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick's Day has traditionally been a religious occasion. Until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17. Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government began a national campaign to use St. Patrick's Day as an opportunity to drive tourism and showcase Ireland to the rest of the world.
The Chicago River
Chicago is famous for a somewhat peculiar annual event: dyeing the Chicago River green. The tradition started in 1962, when city pollution-control workers used dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that the green dye might provide a unique way to celebrate the St. Patrick’s Day. That year, they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river — enough to keep it green for a week.
The shamrock
The shamrock, which was also called the "seamroy" by the Celts (ancient ancestors of the modern Irish), was a sacred plant in ancient Ireland because it symbolized the rebirth of spring. By the 17th century, the shamrock had become a symbol of emerging Irish nationalism. As the English began to seize Irish land and make laws against the use of the Irish language and the practice of Catholicism, many Irish began to wear the shamrock as a symbol of their pride in their heritage and their displeasure with English rule.
Irish music
Music is often associated with St. Patrick's Day — and Irish culture in general. From the days of the ancient Celts, music has been an important part of Irish life. The Celts had an oral culture, where religion, legend and history were passed from one generation to the next by way of stories and songs. After being conquered by the English, and forbidden to speak their own language, the Irish, like other oppressed peoples, turned to music to help them remember important events and hold on to their heritage and history. As it often stirred emotion and helped galvanize people, music was outlawed by the English. During her reign, Queen Elizabeth I even decreed that all artists and pipers were to be arrested and hanged on the spot.
Today, traditional Irish bands like The Chieftains, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are gaining worldwide popularity. Their music is produced with instruments that have been used for centuries, including the fiddle, the uilleann pipes (a sort of elaborate bagpipe), the tin whistle and the bodhran (an ancient type of frame drum that was traditionally used in warfare).
The snake
It has long been recounted that, during his mission in Ireland, St. Patrick once stood on a hilltop (which is now called Croagh Patrick), and with only a wooden staff by his side, banished all the snakes from Ireland. In fact, the island nation was never home to any snakes. The "banishing of the snakes" was really a metaphor for the eradication of pagan ideology from Ireland and the triumph of Christianity. Within 200 years of Patrick's arrival, Ireland was completely Christianized.
Corned beef
Each year, thousands of Irish Americans gather with their loved ones on St. Patrick's Day to share a "traditional" meal of corned beef and cabbage. Though cabbage has long been an Irish food, corned beef only began to be associated with St. Patrick's Day at the turn of the century.
Irish immigrants living on New York City's Lower East Side substituted corned beef for their traditional dish of Irish bacon to save money. They learned about the cheaper alternative from their Jewish neighbors.
The leprechaun
The original Irish name for these figures of folklore is "lobaircin," meaning "small-bodied fellow."
Belief in leprechauns probably stems from Celtic belief in fairies — tiny men and women who could use their magical powers to serve good or evil. In Celtic folktales, leprechauns were cranky souls, responsible for mending the shoes of the other fairies. Though only minor figures in Celtic folklore, leprechauns were known for their trickery, which they often used to protect their much-fabled treasure.
In 1959, Walt Disney released a film called “Darby O'Gill & the Little People,” which introduced America to a very different sort of leprechaun than the cantankerous little man of Irish folklore. This cheerful, friendly leprechaun is a purely American invention, but has quickly evolved into an easily recognizable symbol of both St. Patrick's Day and Ireland in general.
