However, over the years the colour green and its association with Saint Patrick's day grew.[2] Green ribbons and shamrocks were worn in celebration of St Patrick's Day as early as the 17
Trang 1Saint Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day 2004 in Cork, Ireland
March It is named after Saint Patrick (circa AD 387–461), the most commonly
recognized of the patron saints of Ireland It began as a purely Catholic holiday and became an official feast day in the early 1600s However, it has gradually become more
of a secular celebration of Ireland's culture
It is a public holiday on the island of Ireland (both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) and widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora in places such as Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Montserrat
Saint Patrick
Main article: Saint Patrick
Little is known of Patrick's early life, though it is known that he was born in Roman Britain in the fifth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family His father and
grandfather were deacons in the Church At the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave.[1] It is believed he was held somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, possibly Mayo, but the exact location is unknown According to his Confession, he was told by God in a dream to flee from captivity to the coast, where
he would board a ship and return to Britain Upon returning, he quickly joined the Church
in Auxerre in Gaul and studied to be a priest
In 432, he again says that he was called back to Ireland, though as a bishop, to save the Irish, and indeed he was successful at this, focusing on converting royalty and aristocracy
as well as the poor Irish folklore tells that one of his teaching methods included using the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) to the Irish people After nearly thirty years of teaching and spreading God's Word he died on
17 March, 461 AD, and was buried at Downpatrick, so tradition says Although there were other more successful missions to Ireland from Rome, Patrick endured as the principal champion of Irish Christianity and is held in esteem in the Irish Church
Wearing of green
Trang 2According to legend, Saint Patrick used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish people
Originally the colour associated with Saint Patrick was blue However, over the years the colour green and its association with Saint Patrick's day grew.[2] Green ribbons and shamrocks were worn in celebration of St Patrick's Day as early as the 17th century.[3] He
is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish, and the wearing and display of shamrocks and shamrock-inspired designs have become a ubiquitous feature of the day.[4][5] Then in the 1798 rebellion in hopes of making a political statement Irish soldiers wore full green uniforms on 17 March
in hopes of catching attention with their unusual fashion gimmick.[2] The phrase "the wearing of the green", meaning to wear a shamrock on one's clothing, derives from the song of the same name
History in Ireland
It is believed that Saint Patrick's Day has been celebrated in Ireland since before the 1600s It was also believed to have served as a one-day break during Lent[citation needed], the forty day period of fasting This would involve drinking alcohol; something which became a tradition Saint Patrick's feast day was finally placed on the universal liturgical calendar in the Catholic Church due to the influence of the Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding[6] in the early 1600s Saint Patrick's Day thus became a holy day
of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland 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 very occasionally affected by this requirement – when 17 March falls during Holy Week This happened in 1940 when Saint Patrick's Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and again in 2008,
Trang 3having been observed on 15 March Saint Patrick's Day will not fall within Holy Week again until 2160.[7][8]
Traditional Saint Patrick's Day badges from the early 20th century, photographed at the Museum of Country Life in County Mayo
In 1903, Saint Patrick's Day became an official public holiday in Ireland This was thanks
to the Money Bank (Ireland) Act 1903, an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament
introduced by the Irish MP James O'Mara.[9] O'Mara later introduced the law which required that pubs be closed on 17 March after drinking got out-of-hand, a provision which was repealed only in the 1970s The first Saint Patrick's Day parade held in the Irish Free State was held in Dublin in 1931 and was reviewed by the then Minister of Defence Desmond Fitzgerald Although secular celebrations now exist, the holiday remains a religious observance in Ireland, for both the Roman Catholic Church and Church of Ireland
It was only in the mid-1990s that the Irish government began a campaign to use Saint Patrick's Day to showcase Ireland and its culture.[10] The government set up a group called
St Patrick's Festival, with the aim to:
— Offer a national festival that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebrations in the world and promote excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement, and marketing activity
— Provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent, (and those who sometimes wish they were Irish) to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations
— Project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative,
professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal, as we approach the new millennium.[11]
The first Saint Patrick's Festival was held on 17 March, 1996 In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-three-day event By 2006, the festival was five three-days long; over 675,000 people attended the 2009 parade Overall 2009's five day festival saw close
to one million visitors that took part in the festivities that included concerts, outdoor theatre performances, and fireworks.[12]
The topic of the 2004 St Patrick's Symposium was "Talking Irish," during which the nature of Irish identity, economic success, and the future were discussed Since 1996, there has been a greater emphasis on celebrating and projecting a fluid and inclusive
Trang 4notion of "Irishness" rather than an identity based around traditional religious or ethnic allegiance The week around Saint Patrick's Day usually involves Irish language speakers
using more Irish during seachtain na Gaeilge ("Irish Week").[citation needed]
As well as Dublin, many other Irish cities, towns and villages hold their own parades and festivals, including Cork, Belfast, Derry, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, and Waterford The biggest celebrations outside Dublin are in Downpatrick, County Down, where Saint Patrick is rumoured to be buried following his death on 17 March, 461 In 2004,
according to Down District Council, the week-long St Patrick's Festival had over 2,000 participants and 82 floats, bands, and performers, and was watched by over 30,000 people.[citation needed]
The shortest St Patrick's Day parade in the world takes place in Dripsey, Cork The parade lasts just 100 yards and travels between the village's two pubs.[13]
Sign on a beam in the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, a commercial museum, promoting the drinking of Guinness stout on St Patrick's Day
Christian leaders in Ireland have expressed concern about the secularisation of St
Patrick's Day Writing in The Word magazine's March 2007 issue, Fr Vincent Twomey stated that, "it is time to reclaim St Patrick's Day as a church festival" He questioned the need for "mindless alcohol-fuelled revelry" and concluded that, "it is time to bring the piety and the fun together".[14]
Sports events
The Ulster Schools Cup final [15], Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup final and Munster Schools Rugby Senior Cup finals all take place annually on St Patrick's Day
The All-Ireland Club Football and All-Ireland Club Hurling championships finals are held annually in Croke Park on St Patrick's Day
The Interprovincial Championship in both Gaelic Football and Hurling were held
in Croke Park from u to and including 1986 and in 1991
Trang 5 In 2007 the Ireland cricket team famously beat Pakistan in the 2007 Cricket World Cup by 3 wickets to claim their first ever Cricket World Cup win and knocking Pakistan, the fourth ranked team in the world out of the World Cup
Outside Ireland
In Argentina
In Canada
In Great Britain
2006 St Patrick's Day celebrations in Trafalgar Square London
In Great Britain, the Queen Mother used to present bowls of shamrock flown over from Ireland to members of the Irish Guards, a regiment in the British Army consisting
primarily of soldiers from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland The Irish Guards still wear shamrock on this day, flown in from Ireland.[23]
The 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.[24]
Birmingham holds the largest Saint Patrick's Day parade in Britain with a massive city centre parade [25] 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.[26]
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
Liverpool with its geographical location as a major port leading to the Irish Sea has the largest per-capita Irish population of any English city.[citation needed] This has led to a long standing celebration on St Patrick's Day in terms of music, cultural events and the parade
Manchester hosts a two week Irish festival in the weeks prior to St 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 (claiming to be the biggest outside of
Trang 6Dublin and New York based on entrant and float numbers) as well as a large number of cultural and learning events throughout the two-week period The festival promotes itself
as the largest in the UK.[27]
The Scottish town of Coatbridge, where the majority of the town's population are of Irish descent,[citation needed] also has a St Patrick's Day Festival which includes celebrations and parades in the town centre
Glasgow began an annual Saint Patrick's Day parade and festival in 2007
In South Korea
In New Zealand
Saint Patrick's Day is widely celebrated in New Zealand - green items of clothing are traditionally worn and the streets are often filled with revellers drinking and making merry from early afternoon until late at night
The Irish made a large impact in New Zealand's social, political and education systems, owing to the large numbers that emigrated there during the 1800s and Saint Patrick's Day
is seen as a day to celebrate individual links to Ireland and Irish heritage
In the United States
The north White House fountain was dyed green in celebration of Saint Patrick's Day on
17 March, 2009
Early celebrations
Irish Society of Boston organized what was not only the first Saint Patrick's Day Parade
in the colonies but the first recorded Saint Patrick's Day Parade in the world on 18 March
1737.[28] [unreliable source?] The first parade in Ireland was not until the 1931 parade in Dublin This parade in Boston involved Irish immigrant workers marching to make a political statement about how they were not happy with their low social status and their inability
to obtain jobs in America New York's first Saint Patrick's Day Parade was held on 17 March 1762 by Irish soldiers in the British Army.The first celebration of Saint Patrick's Day in New York City was held at the Crown and Thistle Tavern in 1766, the parades
Trang 7were held as political and social statements because the Irish immigrants were being treated unfairly.[29] In 1780, General George Washington, who commanded soldiers of Irish descent in the Continental Army, allowed his troops a holiday on 17 March “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence."[30][31] This event became known as The St Patrick's Day Encampment of 1780.[28] [unreliable source?]
Postcard postmarked 1912 in the United States
Irish patriotism in New York City continued to soar and the parade in New York City continued to grow Irish aid societies were created like Friendly Sons of St Patrick and the Hibernian Society and they marched in the parades too Finally when many of these aid societies joined forces in 1848 the parade became not only the largest parade in the United States but one of the largest in the world.[32]
Customs today
Today, Saint Patrick's Day is widely celebrated in America by Irish and non-Irish alike Many people, regardless of ethnic background, wear green-coloured clothing and items Traditionally, those who are caught not wearing green are pinched affectionately.[33]
Seattle and other cities paint the traffic stripe of their parade routes green Chicago dyes its river green and has done so since 1962 when sewer workers used green dye to check for sewer discharges and had the idea to turn the river green for Saint Patrick's Day Originally 100 pounds of vegetable dye was used to turn the river green for a whole week but now only forty pounds of dye is used and the colour only lasts for several hours.[2]
Indianapolis also dyes its main canal green Savannah dyes its downtown city fountains green Missouri University of Science and Technology - St Pat's Board Alumni paint 12 city blocks kelly green with mops before the annual parade.[citation needed] In Jamestown, New York, the Chadakoin River (a small tributary that connects Conewango Creek with its source at Chautauqua Lake) is dyed green each year
Trang 8The Chicago River in Chicago, Illinois on Saint Patrick's Day.
In the Northeastern United States, peas are traditionally planted on Saint Patrick's Day.[34]
Parades
Sports-related celebrations
Baseball
Basketball