Saint Patrick’s Day (Irish: Lá ‘le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially - but to some a derogatory term - Paddy’s Day, is the feast day which annually celebrates Saint Patrick (386-493), the patron saint of Ireland, on March 17. It is the Irish national holiday and one of the public holidays in the Republic of Ireland (a bank holiday in Northern Ireland); the overseas territory of Montserrat; and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In the United States it is widely celebrated, although not an official holiday.
Celebration Overview
Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated worldwide by Irish people and increasingly by many of non-Irish descent. Celebrations are generally themed around all things green and Irish; both Christians and non-Christians celebrate the secular version of the holiday by wearing green, eating Irish food, imbibing Irish drink, and attending parades.
The St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, Ireland is part of a five-day festival, with over 500,000 people attending the 2006 parade. The largest St. Patrick’s Day parade is held in New York City and it is watched by 2 million spectators. The St. Patrick’s day parade was first held in New York City on 17 March 1766 when Irish soldiers marched through the city. Ireland’s cities all hold their own parades and festivals. These cities include Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Galway, Derry, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford. Parades also take place in other Irish towns and villages. Other large parades include those in Cleveland, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Coatbridge, Montreal, Boston,Houston, Chicago, Kansas City, Savannah, Pittsburgh, Denver, Sacramento, Scranton, and Toronto. Large parades also take place throughout Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia.
As well as being a celebration of Irish culture, Saint Patrick’s Day is a Christian festival celebrated in the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and some other denominations. The day always falls in the season of Lent. In church calendars (though rarely in secular ones) Saint Patrick’s Day is moved to the following Monday when it falls on a Sunday. It is traditional for those observing a lenten fast to break it for the duration of Saint Patrick’s Day whenever March 17 falls on a Friday.
In many parts of North America, Britain, and Australia expatriate Irish, those of Irish descent, and ever-growing crowds of people with no Irish connections but who may proclaim themselves “Irish for a day” also celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, usually by drinking incredible amounts of alcoholic beverages (lager dyed green, Irish beer and stout, such as Murphys, Smithwicks, Harp or Guinness, or Irish whiskey, Irish cider, Irish coffee, or Baileys Irish Cream) and by wearing at least one article of green-coloured clothing.
In Ireland
In the recent past, Saint Patrick’s Day was celebrated only as a religious holiday. It became a public holiday only in 1903, by the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament introduced by the Irish MP James O’Mara. O’Mara later introduced the law which required that pubs be closed on March 17, a provision which was repealed only in the 1970s. The first St. 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 is still a religious observance in some areas.
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. 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.
The first Saint Patrick’s Festival was held on March 17, 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long.
The topic of the 2004 St. Patrick’s Symposium was “Talking Irish,” during which the nature of Irish identity, economic success and the future was discussed. Since 1996, there has been a greater emphasis on celebrating and projecting a fluid and inclusive notion of “Irishness” rather than an identity based around traditional religious or ethnic allegiance. The week around Saint Patrick’s Day usually involves Irish speakers using more Irish during seachtain na Gaeilge (”Irish Week”).
Many Irish people still wear a bunch of shamrock on their lapels or caps on this day or green, white, and orange badges (after the colors of the Irish flag). Girls and boys wear green in their hair. Artists draw shamrock signs on people’s cheek as a cultural sign, including American Tourists.
And although Saint Patrick’s Day has the colour green as their theme, one little known fact is that it was once blue that was the colour of this day.
The biggest celebrations on the island of Ireland outside Dublin are in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, where Saint Patrick was buried following his death on March 17, 493. In 2004, according to Down District Council, the week-long St. Patrick’s Festival had over 2000 participants and 82 floats, bands, and performers, and was watched by over 30,000 people.
The day is celebrated by the Church of Ireland as a Christian festival, Saint Patrick’s Day as a celebration of Irish culture was rarely acknowledged by Northern Irish loyalists, who consider it a festival of the Irish republicans. The Belfast City Council recently agreed to give public funds to its parade for the first time; previously the parade was funded privately. The Belfast parade is based on equality and only the flag of St. Patrick is supposed to be used as a symbol of the day to prevent it being seen as a time which is exclusively for Republicans and Nationalists. This allowed both Unionists and Nationalists to celebrate the day together. Most people in Northern Ireland from both Nationalist and Unionist traditions wish to have St. Patrick’s day designated a National holiday throughout Northern Ireland, as it is currently only a Bank Holiday.
Since the 1990s, Irish Taoisigh have sometimes attended special functions either on Saint Patrick’s Day or a day or two earlier, in the White House, where they present shamrock to the President of the United States. A similar presentation is made to the Speaker of the House. Originally only representatives of the Republic of Ireland attended, but since the mid-1990s all major Political parties in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are invited, with the attendance including the representatives of the Irish government, the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Féin and others. No Northern Irish parties were invited for these functions in 2005. In recent years, it is common for the entire Irish government to be abroad representing the country in various parts of the world. In 2003, the President of Ireland celebrated the holiday in Sydney, the Taoiseach was in Washington, while other Irish government members attended ceremonies in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Savannah, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Africa, Korea, Japan, and Brazil.
Saint Patrick’s Day parades in Ireland date from the late 19th century, originating in the growing sense of Irish nationalism. (The first parade did not begin in Ireland but in the United States)
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