St. Patrick's Day Trivia

[one...two...tree 2,762]

St. Patrick is credited with taking Christianity to Ireland around A.D. 432. To sell his message, Irish legend says he chose the shamrock as a symbol of the Christian church. Its three leaves were meant to represent the Holy Trinity: God, Son and the Holy Spirit, joined together by a common stalk. Apparently, the shamrock campaign worked: by the time of St. Patrick's death on March 17, 461, he had created a number of churches, schools and monasteries dedicated to the faith.

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Saint Patrick's color was blue, not green, say historians. The hue — St. Patrick's blue, a lighter shade — can still be seen on ancient Irish flags and was used on armbands and flags by members of the Irish Citizen Army, whose 1916 Easter Rising attempted to end British rule. But the use of green on St. Patrick's Day began during the 1798 Irish Rebellion, when the clover became a symbol of nationalism and the "wearing of the green" on lapels became regular practice. The green soon spread to uniforms as well. That evolution, combined with the idea of Ireland's lush green fields, eventually made blue a thing of the past.

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The first St. Patrick's Day parade wasn't held in Ireland but in the U.S. Well, technically "the colonies." In 1762, Irish soldiers serving in the English army celebrated the holiday by marching through the streets of New York City. By 1848, the parade was an official city event and today nearly 3 million people line New York City's streets to watch the five-hour-long, 150,000-participant procession.

Chicago invented its own St. Patrick's Day tradition: it dyes the Chicago River green. In 1962 sanitation workers realized that the green vegetable dye they used to check for illegally dumped sewage could double as a St. Patrick's Day decoration. The city has been greenifying its waterways ever since. Unfortunately, the color lasts only for a few hours.

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St. Patrick, Ireland, St. Patrick's Day. Simple, right? The man wasn't even Irish! He was actually born in Britain around the turn of the 4th century. At 16 years old, Irish raiders captured him in the midst of an attack on his family's estate. The raiders then took him to Ireland and held him captive for six years. After escaping, he went back to England for religious training and was sent back to Ireland many years later as a missionary. St. Patrick was actually born Maewyn Succat, according to legend; he changed his name to Patricius, or Patrick, which derives from the Latin term for "father figure," when he became a priest.

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[Calypso 464]

Cool! :thumbs:Thanks for posting, brother. I wasn't really interested with St. Patrick's Day when I was still in the Philippines but I got so curious recently. A woman placed a huge clover leaf decoration in her farmers' market stall today. When my husband and I visited Orlando last year, one bar was having a countdown for St. Patrick's Day. On Saturday last week, we went to Manhattan Beach and had lunch in an Irish cafe.

I like some Irish people and the Irish accent. When I was in high school, the boy band Westlife was very popular and I had a huge crush on Mark Feehily (the guy at the center of the photo below). I've just learned last year that he confessed he is gay.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

When I was in high school, the boy band Westlife was very popular and I had a huge crush on Mark Feehily (the guy at the center of the photo below). I've just learned last year that he confessed he is gay.

You couldn't tell from just lookin' at him?

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Seriously though, St. Patrick's Day has a really long history here in the U.S. and it has transformed from celebration of Christianity to celebration of heritage to now an excuse to dress up in green and drink beer.

[Peikko 1,575]

Dress up in green and drink green beer and eat corned beef and cabbage - none of which is done in Ireland on St Paddy's day

[Jenn! 918]

Dress up in green and drink green beer and eat corned beef and cabbage - none of which is done in Ireland on St Paddy's day

Yeah, I don't understand why people celebrate St. Patrick's Day here. Well, I mean other than as an excuse to get drunk. Just another way to get people to spend their money on useless things (green).

[Peikko 1,575]

I can understand why those of Irish extraction keep it up and I guess that's how it's become part of the American cultural fabric but simply boozing and wearing green isn't really very relevant to what St Patrick's day means to the Irish so it does come across as yet another commercialized celebration and a little pointless.

[Jenn! 918]

Man Who's 1/16th Irish Proud Of His Irish Heritage

KENOSHA, WI—Despite being just 1/16th Irish, Dennis Kroeger, a 27-year-old marketing manager whose great-great grandmother hailed from County Cork, is fiercely proud of his Irish ancestry.

"Dennis sure loves playing up his Irishness," said Lisa Biederman, a friend and coworker of Kroeger's. "When he gets mad, it's his Irish temper. When he drinks, he's got a powerful Irish thirst. When he's being sappy, it's his Irish poet's soul. I'm like, 'Dennis, you're not even Catholic.'"

"Mary Gaughan, my mother's father's mother's mother, was from a tiny village called Ballydesmond," said the brown-eyed, brown-haired Kroeger, who is half German, one-quarter Swedish, one-eighth Dutch, one-sixteenth Belgian, and one-sixteenth Irish. "She married a sailor who was traveling from Rotterdam to America, and they settled in Milwaukee. Ever since, my family's been proud to be Irish."

Kroeger, who cites Man Of Aran as his favorite movie and Seumas MacManus' The Story Of The Irish Race as his favorite book, takes his Irish heritage seriously. He says he is saddened by the number of Irish-Americans who celebrate their culture only once a year, dismissing such less-than-reverent individuals as "green-beer Irish."

"Every St. Patrick's Day, it's the same thing," said Kroeger over a "correct" room-temperature Guinness at Noonan's, a Kenosha bar he praised as authentically Irish. "Everyone puts on green hats and spray-painted carnations and wears 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' pins and gets drunk and makes fools of themselves. That's not what being Irish is about. That's an exaggerated, stereotyped version of our culture."

"How many of these people know the first thing about their history?" Kroeger asked. "How many of them know anything about the potato famine, much less the Downing Street Declaration?"

Jessica Kroeger, 23, is mystified by her older brother's identification with the Irish people.

"I have no idea where he got this whole Irish fixation from," Jessica said. "I mean, Dad's mostly German and Mom's some kind of European mongrel. He never gave a ###### about it in high school, but at some point in college it just suddenly kicked in."

Padraig O'Riordan, a senior fellow at the Hibernian-American League in Boston, was bemused by Kroeger's eagerness to associate himself with the Emerald Isle.

"I suppose if being 1/16th Irish is the most interesting thing about the man, he has the right to flaunt it," O'Riordan said. "But he probably doesn't realize that what he's really telling the world is that he's desperate for an identity. I mean, I'm 100 percent Irish, but I don't run around telling every single person I meet."

"I just don't get what Dennis thinks is so thrilling about being part Irish," Jessica said. "I mean, sure, it's nice, but it doesn't exactly make you exotic. My boyfriend, now, he's 1/8th Cherokee."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27838

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Dress up in green and drink green beer and eat corned beef and cabbage - none of which is done in Ireland on St Paddy's day

It was explained in the OP that the first St. Patrick's Day Parade was here and not in Ireland. Traditions work that way. Just look at how Christmas here is celebrated, or Easter, St. Valentine's Day, etc. People like to celebrate, for whatever the reason. It is what it is.

[Peikko 1,575]

It was explained in the OP that the first St. Patrick's Day Parade was here and not in Ireland. Traditions work that way. Just look at how Christmas here is celebrated, or Easter, St. Valentine's Day, etc. People like to celebrate, for whatever the reason. It is what it is.

It is what it is, and I am saying that what it is is commercial and trite. I know people like to celebrate and really, that's great and people can do whatever it is that makes them happy, but that doesn't mean I have to believe that how people celebrate is meaningful or worthwhile and in this instance and in many instances I believe quite the opposite. I would like to see more celebrations that actually fulfill some role beyond selling lots of cards, chocolate, flowers and beer - that is my opinion.

[The_Dude 1,142]

Yeah, I don't understand why people celebrate St. Patrick's Day here. Well, I mean other than as an excuse to get drunk. Just another way to get people to spend their money on useless things (green).

Do you really need to give americans much of a real reason to party? St. Patrick's day here is akin to Cinco De Mayo.... a commercialized holiday that nobody in the country that they are supposedly celebrating has any real interest in.

[Lorenzoid 12]

If I'm not mistaken, a friend from Ireland told me that the American-style St. Patrick's Day celebration is slowly catching on there. The Irish apparently appreciate an excuse to party just as Americans do.

[Amby 490]

I boiled some potatoes to celebrate

[The_Dude 1,142]

I boiled some potatoes to celebrate

Was this from your man-juice cookbook?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I boiled some potatoes to celebrate

Red potatoes?

[scandal 951]

Chicago invented its own St. Patrick's Day tradition: it dyes the Chicago River green. In 1962 sanitation workers realized that the green vegetable dye they used to check for illegally dumped sewage could double as a St. Patrick's Day decoration. The city has been greenifying its waterways ever since. Unfortunately, the color lasts only for a few hours.

It's quite cool actually!