Saint Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick was a 5th-century Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Much of what is known about Saint Patrick comes from the Declaration, which was allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father was a Christian deacon and his grandfather a priest. According to the Declaration, at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. It says that he spent six years there working as a shepherd and that during this time he found God. The Declaration says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to take him home. After making his way home, Patrick went on to become a priest.

According to tradition, Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The Declaration says that he spent many years evangelising in the northern half of Ireland and converted thousands.

Tradition holds that he died on 17 March and was buried at Downpatrick. Over the following centuries, many legends grew up around Patrick and he became Ireland's foremost saint.

Celebration and traditions

Present day Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have been greatly influenced by those that developed among the Irish diaspora, especially in North America. Until the late 20th century, Saint Patrick's Day was often a bigger celebration among the diaspora than it was in Ireland.

Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, Irish traditional music sessions (céilithe), and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. There are also formal gatherings such as banquets and dances, although these were more common in the past. Saint Patrick's Day parades began in North America in the 18th century but did not spread to Ireland until the 20th century. The participants generally include marching bands, the military, fire brigades, cultural organisations, charitable organisations, voluntary associations, youth groups, fraternities, and so on. However, over time, many of the parades have become more akin to a carnival. More effort is made to use the Irish language, especially in Ireland, where 1 March to St Patrick's Day on 17 March is Seachtain na Gaeilge ("Irish language week").

Since 2010, famous landmarks have been lit up in green on Saint Patrick's Day as part of Tourism Ireland's "Global Greening Initiative" or "Going Green for St Patrick's Day". The Sydney Opera House and the Sky Tower in Auckland were the first landmarks to participate and since then over 300 landmarks in fifty countries across the globe have gone green for Saint Patrick's Day.

Many Irish people also attend church services with their families, and the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day. Perhaps because of this, drinking alcohol – particularly Irish whiskey, beer, or cider – has become an integral part of the celebrations. In Ireland, this relaxation of fasting rules is notably marked by the consumption of stout, a dark ale beer that is a key part of the celebration, with breweries preparing months in advance for the demand. The Saint Patrick's Day custom of "drowning the shamrock" or "wetting the shamrock" was historically popular. At the end of the celebrations, especially in Ireland, a shamrock is put into the bottom of a cup, which is then filled with whiskey, beer, or cider. It is then drunk as a toast to Saint Patrick, Ireland, or those present. The shamrock would either be swallowed with the drink or taken out and tossed over the shoulder for good luck.

Wearing green and shamrocks

On Saint Patrick's Day, it is customary to wear shamrocks, green clothing or green accessories. Saint Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish. This story first appears in writing in 1726, though it may be older. In pagan Ireland, three was a significant number and the Irish had many triple deities, which may have aided St Patrick in his evangelisation efforts. Roger Homan writes, "We can perhaps see St Patrick drawing upon the visual concept of the triskele when he uses the shamrock to explain the Trinity". Patricia Monaghan says there is no evidence the shamrock was sacred to the pagan Irish. Jack Santino speculates that it may have represented the regenerative powers of nature, and was recast in a Christian context‍—‌icons of Saint Patrick often depict the saint "with a cross in one hand and a sprig of shamrocks in the other".

The first association of the colour green with Ireland is from a legend in the 11th century Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland). It tells of Goídel Glas (Goídel the green), the eponymous ancestor of the Gaels and creator of the Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx). Goídel is bitten by a venomous snake but saved from death by Moses placing his staff on the snakebite, leaving him with a green mark. His descendants settle in Ireland, a land free of snakes. One of the first, Íth, visits Ireland after climbing the Tower of Hercules and being captivated by the sight of a beautiful green island in the distance.

The colour green was further associated with Ireland from the 1640s, when the green harp flag was used by the Irish Catholic Confederation. Later, James Connolly described this flag as representing "the sacred emblem of Ireland's unconquered soul". Green ribbons and shamrocks have been worn on Saint Patrick's Day since at least the 1680s. Since then, the colour green and its association with St Patrick's Day have grown.

The Friendly Brothers of St Patrick, an Irish fraternity founded in about 1750, adopted green as its colour. The Order of St Patrick, an Anglo-Irish chivalric order founded in 1783, instead adopted blue as its colour, which led to blue being associated with Saint Patrick. In the 1790s, the colour green was adopted by the United Irishmen. This was a republican organisation—founded mostly by Protestants but with a mainly Catholic membership—who launched a rebellion in 1798 against British rule. Ireland was first called "the Emerald Isle" in "When Erin First Rose" (1795), a poem by a co-founder of the United Irishmen, William Drennan, which stresses the historical importance of green to the Irish. The phrase "wearing of the green" comes from a song of the same name about United Irishmen being persecuted for wearing green. The flags of the 1916 Easter Rising featured green, such as the Starry Plough banner and the Proclamation Flag of the Irish Republic. When the Irish Free State was founded in 1922, the government ordered all post boxes be painted green, with the slogan "green paint for a green people"; in 1924, the government introduced a green Irish passport.

In Ireland

History

Saint Patrick's feast day, as a kind of national day, was already being celebrated by the Irish in Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. Saint Patrick's feast day was finally placed on the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church in the early 1600s, due to the influence of Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding. Saint Patrick's Day thus became a holy day of obligation for Catholics in Ireland. It is also a feast day in the Church of Ireland, part of the Anglican Communion. The church calendar avoids the observance of saints' feasts during certain solemnities, moving the saint's day to a time outside those periods. Saint Patrick's Day is occasionally affected by this requirement, when 17 March falls during Holy Week. This happened in 1940, when Saint Patrick's Day was officially observed on 3 April to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and again in 2008, where it was officially observed on 15 March. Saint Patrick's Day will not fall within Holy Week again until 2160. However, the popular festivities may still be held on 17 March or on a weekend near to the feast day.

Saint Patrick's was perceived as the middle day of spring in the Irish calendar. People expected that weather would be improved following the festival, and farmers would begin planting potato.

Modern era

In 1903, Saint Patrick's Day became an official public holiday in Ireland due to the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom introduced by James O'Mara, an MP from the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP).

The first Saint Patrick's Day parade in Ireland was held in Waterford in 1903, hundreds of years after the first parade in North America. The week of Saint Patrick's Day 1903 had been declared Irish Language Week by the Gaelic League and in Waterford they opted to have a procession on Sunday 15 March. The procession comprised the Mayor and members of Waterford Corporation, the Trades Hall, the various trade unions and bands who included the 'Barrack St Band' and the 'Thomas Francis Meagher Band'. The parade began at the premises of the Gaelic League in George's St and finished in the Peoples Park, where the public were addressed by the Mayor and other dignitaries. On Tuesday 17 March, most Waterford businesses—including public houses—were closed and marching bands paraded as they had two days previously.

On Saint Patrick's Day 1916, the Irish Volunteers—an Irish nationalist paramilitary organisation—held parades throughout Ireland. The authorities recorded 38 St Patrick's Day parades, involving 6,000 marchers, almost half of whom were reported to be armed. The following month, the Irish Volunteers launched the Easter Rising against British rule. This marked the beginning of the Irish revolutionary period and led to the Irish War of Independence and Civil War. During this time, Saint Patrick's Day celebrations in Ireland were muted, although the day was sometimes chosen to hold large political rallies.

The celebrations remained low-key after the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922; the only state-organized observance was a military procession and trooping of the colours, and an Irish-language mass attended by government ministers. In 1927, the Irish Free State government banned the selling of alcohol on St Patrick's Day, although it remained legal in Northern Ireland. The ban was not repealed until 1961.

The first official, state-sponsored Saint Patrick's Day parade in Dublin took place in 1931. Public St Patrick's Day festivities in Ireland have been cancelled three times, all for public health reasons. In 2001, celebrations were postponed to May due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak, while in 2020 and 2021 they were cancelled outright due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Celebrations elsewhere

Europe

In England, the Royal Colonel or Colonel-in-chief traditionally present bowls of shamrock to members of the Irish Guards, a regiment in the British Army, following Queen Alexandra introducing the tradition in 1901. Since 2012, Catherine, Princess of Wales has presented the bowls of shamrock to the Irish Guards. While female royals are often tasked with presenting the bowls of shamrock, male royals have also undertaken the role, such as King George VI in 1950 to mark the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Irish Guards, and in 2016 the Duke of Cambridge in place of his wife. Fresh Shamrocks are presented to the Irish Guards, regardless of where they are stationed, and are flown in from Ireland.

While some Saint Patrick's Day celebrations could be conducted openly in Britain pre 1960s, this would change following the commencement by the IRA's bombing campaign on mainland Britain and as a consequence this resulted in a suspicion of all things Irish and those who supported them which led to people of Irish descent wearing a sprig of shamrock on Saint Patrick's day in private or attending specific events. Today, after many years following the Good Friday Agreement, people of Irish descent openly wear a sprig of shamrock to celebrate their Irishness.

Christian denominations in Great Britain observing his feast day include the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.

Birmingham holds the largest Saint Patrick's Day parade in Britain with a city centre parade over a two-mile (3 km) route through the city centre. The organisers describe it as the third biggest parade in the world after Dublin and New York.

London, since 2002, has had an annual Saint Patrick's Day parade which takes place on weekends around the 17th, usually in Trafalgar Square. In 2008, the water in the Trafalgar Square fountains was dyed green. In 2020, the parade was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Liverpool has the highest proportion of residents with Irish ancestry of any English city. This has led to a long-standing celebration on Saint Patrick's Day in terms of music, cultural events and the parade.

Manchester hosts a two-week Irish festival in the weeks prior to Saint Patrick's Day. The festival includes an Irish Market based at the city's town hall which flies the Irish tricolour opposite the Union Flag, a large parade as well as a large number of cultural and learning events throughout the two-week period.

Americas

Saint Patrick's Day is a government holiday in Newfoundland and Labrador. The island Newfoundland has strong historic and cultural ties to Ireland and is cited as the most Irish place outside of Ireland. Approximately 20% of Newfoundland's population consists of Irish Newfoundlanders.

One of the longest-running and largest Saint Patrick's Day (French: le jour de la Saint-Patrick) parades in North America occurs each year in Montreal, whose city flag includes a shamrock in its lower-right quadrant. The yearly celebration has been organised by the United Irish Societies of Montreal since 1929. The parade has been held yearly without interruption since 1824. Saint Patrick's Day itself, however, has been celebrated in Montreal since as far back as 1759 by Irish soldiers in the Montreal Garrison following the British conquest of New France.

In Saint John, New Brunswick Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated as a week-long celebration. Shortly after the JP Collins Celtic Festival is an Irish festival celebrating Saint John's Irish heritage. The festival is named for a young Irish doctor James Patrick Collins who worked on Partridge Island (Saint John County) quarantine station tending to sick Irish immigrants before he died there himself.

In Manitoba, the Irish Association of Manitoba runs a yearly three-day festival of music and culture based around Saint Patrick's Day.

In 2004, the CelticFest Vancouver Society organised its first yearly festival in downtown Vancouver to celebrate the Celtic Nations and their cultures. This event, which includes a parade, occurs each year during the weekend nearest Saint Patrick's Day.

In Quebec City, there was a parade from 1837 to 1926. The Quebec City St-Patrick Parade returned in 2010 after more than 84 years. For the occasion, a portion of the New York Police Department Pipes and Drums were present as special guests.

There has been a parade held in Toronto since at least 1863.

The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team was known as the Toronto St. Patricks from 1919 to 1927, and wore green jerseys. In 1999, when the Maple Leafs played on Saint Patrick's Day, they wore green St Patrick's retro uniforms.

Oceania

Saint Patrick's Day is not a public holiday in Australia, although it is celebrated each year across the country's states and territories. Festivals and parades are often held on weekends around 17 March in cities such as Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbourne. On occasion, festivals and parades are cancelled. For instance, Melbourne's 2006 and 2007 Saint Patrick's Day festivals and parades were cancelled due to sporting events (Commonwealth Games and Australian Grand Prix) being booked on and around the planned Saint Patrick's Day festivals and parades in the city. In Sydney the parade and family day was cancelled in 2016 due to financial problems. However, Brisbane's Saint Patrick's Day parade, which was cancelled at the outbreak of World War II and wasn't revived until 1990, was not called off in 2020 as precaution for the COVID-19 pandemic, in contrast to many other Saint Patrick's Day parades around the world.

The first mention of Saint Patrick's Day being celebrated in Australia was in 1795, when Irish convicts and administrators, Catholic and Protestant, in the penal colony came together to celebrate the day as a national holiday, despite a ban against assemblies being in place at the time. This unified day of Irish nationalist observance would soon dissipate over time, with celebrations on Saint Patrick's Day becoming divisive between religions and social classes, representative more of Australianness than of Irishness and held intermittingly throughout the years. Historian Patrick O'Farrell credits the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne for re-igniting St Patrick's Day celebrations in Australia and reviving the sense of Irishness amongst those with Irish heritage. The organisers of the Saint Patrick's festivities in the past were, more often than not, the Catholic clergy which often courted controversy. Bishop Patrick Phelan of Sale described in 1921 how the authorities in Victoria had ordered that a Union Jack be flown at the front of the Saint Patrick's Day parade and following the refusal by Irishmen and Irish-Australians to do so, the authorities paid for an individual to carry the flag at the head of the parade. This individual was later assaulted by two men who were later fined in court.

From 1878 to 1955, Saint Patrick's Day was recognised as a public holiday in New Zealand, together with St George's Day (England) and St Andrew's Day (Scotland). Auckland attracted many Irish migrants in the 1850s and 1860s, and it was here where some of the earliest Saint Patrick's Day celebrations took place, which often entailed the hosting of community picnics. However, this rapidly evolved from the late 1860s onwards to include holding parades with pipe bands and marching children wearing green, sporting events, concerts, balls and other social events, where people displayed their Irishness with pride. While Saint Patrick's Day is no longer recognised as a public holiday, it continues to be celebrated across New Zealand with festivals and parades at weekends on or around 17 March.

Asia

Saint Patrick's parades are now held in many locations across Japan. The first parade, in Tokyo, was organised by The Irish Network Japan (INJ) in 1992.

The Irish Association of Korea has celebrated Saint Patrick's Day since 1976 in Seoul, the capital city of Korea and Busan, second largest city in Korea. The plaxe of the parade and festivals are Itaewon of Seoul and Seomyeon of Busan. It is sponsored by Embassy of Ireland in Korea.

In Malaysia, the St Patrick's Society of Selangor, founded in 1925, organises a yearly St Patrick's Ball, described as the biggest Saint Patrick's Day celebration in Asia. Guinness Anchor Berhad also organises 36 parties across the country in places like the Klang Valley, Penang, Johor Bahru, Malacca, Ipoh, Kuantan, Kota Kinabalu, Miri and Kuching.

UN Peacekeeping missions

Irish United Nations (UN) peacekeepers outside Ireland also celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. For example, in 2021, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force's Irish contingent led a parade in Syria where members received shamrocks and 35 personnel were presented with the UN Peacekeeping Medal.

International Space Station

Astronauts on board the International Space Station have celebrated the festival in different ways. Irish-American Catherine Coleman played a hundred-year-old flute belonging to Matt Molloy and a tin whistle belonging to Paddy Moloney, both members of the Irish music group The Chieftains, while floating weightless in the space station on Saint Patrick's Day in 2011. Her performance was later included in a track called "The Chieftains in Orbit" on the group's 2012 album, Voice of Ages.

Chris Hadfield took photographs of Ireland from Earth orbit, and a picture of himself wearing green clothing in the space station, and posted them online on Saint Patrick's Day in 2013. He also posted online a recording of himself singing "Danny Boy" in space.

Criticism

Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have been criticised, particularly for their association with public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Some argue that the festivities have become too commercialised and tacky, and have strayed from their original purpose of honouring Saint Patrick and Irish heritage. Irish American journalist Niall O'Dowd has criticised attempts to recast Saint Patrick's Day as a celebration of multiculturalism rather than a celebration of Irishness.

Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have also been criticised for fostering demeaning stereotypes of Ireland and Irish people. An example is the wearing of 'leprechaun outfits', which are based on derogatory 19th century caricatures of the Irish. In the run up to Saint Patrick's Day 2014, the Ancient Order of Hibernians successfully campaigned to stop major American retailers from selling novelty merchandise that promoted negative Irish stereotypes.

Saint Patrick's Day celebrations outside Ireland have been described by critics as displays of "Plastic Paddyness"; where foreigners appropriate and misrepresent Irish culture, claim Irish identity, and enact Irish stereotypes.

LGBTQ groups in the US were long banned from marching in Saint Patrick's Day parades in New York City and Boston. In 1995, the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston affirmed event organizers' rights to determine the messages that their events conveyed, effectively permitting the exclusion of LGBTQ groups. The bans on LGBTQ group participation in New York City and Boston were lifted in 2014 and 2015, respectively. However, LGBTQ groups still experience barriers to participation and have organized alternative, inclusive events such as St. Pat's for All in Queens.

Sports events

Traditionally the finals of the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship and All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship were held on Saint Patrick's Day in Croke Park, Dublin, but since 2020 these now take place in January. The Interprovincial Championship was previously held on 17 March but this was switched to games being played in Autumn.

The Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup, Munster Schools Rugby Senior Cup and Ulster Schools Senior Cup finals are held on Saint Patrick's Day. The Connacht Schools Rugby Senior Cup final is held on the weekend before Saint Patrick's Day.

Horse racing at the Cheltenham Festival attracts large numbers of Irish people, both residents of Britain and many who travel from Ireland, and usually coincides with Saint Patrick's Day.

The Six Nations Championship is an annual international rugby Union tournament competed by England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales and reaches its climax on or around Saint Patrick's Day. On St Patrick's Day 2018, Ireland defeated England 24–15 at Twickenham, London to claim the third Grand Slam in their history.

The Saint Patrick's Day Test is an international rugby league tournament that is played between the US and Ireland. The competition was first started in 1995 and continued in 1996, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2011, and 2012. Ireland won the first two tests as well as the one in 2011, with the US winning the remaining 5. The game is usually held on or around 17 March to coincide with Saint Patrick's Day.

The major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada that play during March often wear special third jerseys to acknowledge the holiday. Examples include the Buffalo Sabres (who have worn special Irish-themed practice jerseys), Toronto Maple Leafs (who wear Toronto St. Patricks throwbacks), New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors, and most Major League Baseball teams. The New Jersey Devils have worn their green-and-red throwback jerseys on or around Saint Patrick's Day in recent years.