St. Patrick's Day: Why We Celebrate?

By: Darryl Young
Photo Credit: D'Arcy Murphy

St. Patrick’s Day, the one day everybody is Irish. It is full of celebrations with family and friends involving drinking and classic pub foods. But why do we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

It all started with St. Patrick himself. There are many legends of St. Patrick, but the most historically accurate goes something like this. St. Patrick was born in Britain. He was captured during a raid at 16, was sold into slavery in Ireland and was responsible for herding sheep. While he was held captive, he turned to God in prayer. He began to have visions in which God gave him an escape route and demanded him to flee Ireland. After reunited with his family in Britain, he had other visions which urged him to go back to Ireland. He began his studies for priesthood and was eventually ordained a bishop, sent to bring the gospel to Ireland. St. Patrick began preaching the gospel throughout the country. He preached for 40 years, converting much of Ireland. After years of living in poverty, he perished on March 17th, 461.

So, to summarize, St. Patrick’s Day is a religious celebration commemorating the death of St. Patrick. But how did it become so great? What turned it from a modest religious celebration to one of parades, green shakes, and leprechaun hats?

St. Patrick’s Day was not considered a public holiday until 1904, but was celebrated privately in people’s homes. Then it started to become a public celebration in the 1920s when military parades started. However, it was extremely serious. In fact, until the 1960s, bars were closed on March 17th. Unlike the exhilarating parades today, it involved going to church in the morning and watching the military parade at noon. In the 1960s, it began to become a public parade. Then in 1996 the St. Patrick’s Day Festival was created, completely changing the event. This festival still goes on to this day and is a time of celebration. So that is how Ireland got the Luck o’ the Irish, but how did North America?

When Irish immigrants came over to Canada and the USA it was used as a celebration of their faith and their Irish homeland. In the US it also symbolized patriotic beliefs of their new free homeland. This celebration began to grow, especially around the streets of Boston, Chicago, and New York, which all had high populations of Irish immigrants. These celebrations started to become integrated with public events and soon everybody was celebrating the patron saint of Ireland.

So between Irish celebrations and Celtic immigration, the patron saint of Ireland has become highly commemorated throughout the entire world. May the Luck o’ the Irish be with you this St. Patrick’s Day!

Further Reading:

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=89 
http://time.com/3744055/america-invented-st-patricks-day/
http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729#death-and-legacy-st-patricks-day 
http://www.theweek.co.uk/arts-life/57724/st-patricks-day-irish-feast-made-america