How America Gave Ireland St. Patrick's Day

This may come as a surprise to many American's but St. Patrick's Day as it is celebrated in the United States is not the way this festival day was once celebrated in Ireland.

In America for years and years St. Patrick's Day has been a day of grand parades containing colourful floats, marching bands, dancing leprechauns, drinking green beer, eating corned beef and cabbage, dying the Chicago river green and people wearing as much green as possible whilst waving Irish flags with pride. This way of celebrating St. Patrick's Day in Ireland and is only a recent phenomenon.

Just in case you may not know St. Patrick is Ireland's patron saint. It is St. Patrick who is credited with first introducing Christianity to Ireland. For hundreds of years St. Patrick's Day has been celebrated by the Irish but in a different way. St. Patrick's Day is actually a holy day. On this day everyone would not work and attend mass in the morning. In the afternoons families would gather for a meal where the lent ban on meat was lifted and cabbage and bacon, not corned beef was ate. This was mainly a religious family day. In fact up until recently there were two days a year in which pubs in Ireland had to close their doors. Both of these days were the holy days of Good Friday and St. Patrick's Day. No alcohol could be bought or served anywhere in Ireland on these days. Only recently has legislation changed to allow pubs to open their doors on St. Patrick's Day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

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