St. Paddy’s NOT St. Patty’s

Saint Patrick’s Day is one of my favorite holidays.  The reason that ‘Paddy’ is the acceptable spelling is because the D’s in ‘Paddy’ comes from the Irish spelling of the name Patrick, which is spelled Pádraig…  (Patty is short for Patricia).  

A DRY Holiday

Saint Patrick’s Day was considered a religious holiday in Ireland for most of the 20th century which meant that the nation’s pubs were closed for business on March 17.  To the delight of many, the beer ran freely again when the day was converted to a national holiday in 1970.

A Patron Saint Who, According to Legend, Drove the Snakes Out of Ireland

Though there is no evidence of snakes ever existing in Ireland, Saint Patrick is one of the country’s most celebrated figures.  Interestingly, he wasn’t born Irish and his birth name wasn’t Patrick, it was Maewyn Succat.  He was born in Roman England around the year 390, kidnapped into slavery at age 16 and brought over to Ireland.  He escaped to a monastery in Gaul (around present day France), where he converted to Christianity.  Here, he became a priest and then eventually a bishop and changed his name to Patrick.  He returned to Ireland in 432 as a missionary and played a major role in converting the Irish to Christianity.  He was named Ireland’s patron saint after his death on March 17, 461 AD.

Blue or Green?

Everyone SHOULD be wearing blue, not green.  A light blue became associated with the Order of St. Patrick, an 18th century era order of knights, perhaps to create a shade of blue for the Irish which was different from the English royal blue.  St. Patrick’s blue was considered symbolic of Ireland for many centuries and the Irish Presidential Standard is still blue.  So….why do we wear green to avoid being pinched?  Historically, the color green has been associated with a number of Irish rebellions.  

The use of green for nationalistic reasons was seen during the violent Great Irish Rebellion of 1641, when displaced Catholic landowners and bishops rebelled against the authority of the English crown, which had established a large plantation in the north of Ireland under King James I in the early 17th century.  Military commander Owen Roe O’Neill helped lead the rebellion, and used a green flag with a harp to represent the Confederation of Kilkenny, a group that sought to govern Ireland and kick out the Protestants who had taken control of that land in the north of Ireland.  (They were ultimately defeated by Oliver Cromwell.) 
–Timothy McMahon, Vice President of the American Conference for Irish Studies.

Wearing green in the US for Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations date back to the 19th century when Irish immigrants came to America after the Great Famine of the 1840-50s.  They wore green and carried Irish flags along with American flags as a point of pride for their home country.