The world goes green on St. Patrick’s Day!
It really is incredible that the feast-day of the patron Saint of a tiny little Island in the North Atlantic is celebrated with such gusto across the globe, and it literally is all across the globe. From Boston to Berlin and a ton of cool places in between, the world turns green. Some cities dye their rivers green like Chicago and the new fad is to illuminate your iconic buildings and monuments in a glorious green hue as part of the Irish Tourist Board’s ‘global greening’ campaign.
pic courtesy of the Irish Times.
Who was St. Patrick?
I understand this may patronisingly stating-the-obvious but this famous National festival is to honour St. Patrick, a Missionary who we credit with converting our pagan ancestors to Christianity. The reason I like to remind about this is because for 10 years during my ‘time in the trenches’ (my years leading backpacker tours through Ireland) I would spend St. Patricks Day in Dublin surrounded by 300 boisterous Aussies and Kiwis Who was St. Patrick’s who hadn’t got a clue or care who St. Patrick was and only saw ‘St. Patricks Day’ in terms of getting drunk, wearing green and possibly kissing an Irish person!
It’s not St. Patty’s Day, a patty is a piece of burger meat!
A golden rule – try not to call or refer to our national festival as St. Paddy’s Day. When i would listen to the American college kids enthusiastically rant about ‘Saint Patty’s’, my eyes used to hurt from rolling. I don’t even know why, but I do remember seeing some petulant Irish Uni students nonchalantly march through the temple bar tourist hordes on the big day with a placard proclaiming “It’s not St. Patty’s. a patty is a piece of burger meat’. Funnily enough I think this analogy may have a lot to do with the inherent native Irish dislike of the term ‘Patty’s Day’.
History of St. Patricks Day
St. Patricks Day in Ireland, (and the onset of the binge drinking craze)
Celebrating multiculturalism versus Irishness
