St Patrick's Day Facts, Trivia and Myth-Busting

On March 17th there is a popular saying “There are two types of people in this world - the Irish and those who wish they were Irish” so the best way to describe St. Patrick's Day is “Everybody is Irish on St Patrick's Day”

• March 17th is the feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is believed that he died on March 17 in the year 461 or 493. He is buried under Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, County Down, and is one of the three patron saints of Ireland. The other patron saints are St Brigid of Kildare and St Columba.
• St. Patrick was not actually Irish. He was born in England in 287 and was taken as a slave to Ireland at the age of 16. Patrick found religion during his captivity and after 6 years escaped back to his family. He returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary. The “snakes” he is reputed to have chased out of Ireland are believed to be representative of the pagans and druids.
• According to Statistics Canada (2006) the Irish are the 4th largest ethnic group with 4,354,000 Canadians claiming full or partial Irish descent or 14% of the country's total population. That's pretty close to the population of Ireland itself which is about 4.4 million.
• St Patrick's Day is a public holiday in Newfoundland and Labrador on the nearest Monday to March 17th each year, however post offices, schools and most businesses remain open.
• The colour originally associated with St. Patrick was blue; green became associated during the 19th century. Blue is the official colour as seen on Ireland's Presidential Standard or flag, while the Irish Guards sport a plume of St Patrick's blue in their bearskins. A green shamrock was a symbol that St. Patrick had used to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish and 'the wearing of the green' meant to wear a shamrock to display your faith. This was misinterpreted as wearing green garments and a new tradition was born in North America!
• In Ireland it's bad luck to wear green because it attracts leprechauns (you don't want to the kind of mischief they can dream up for you). Many Irish will wear blue to honour St Patrick on his feast day.
• Shamrocks have three leaves. Four-leafed clovers are so rare that finding one was considered lucky, but not traditionally associated with St. Patrick.
• The current Irish flag, adopted in 1919, is green, white and orange. The green symbolizes the native people of Ireland, the orange represents the British supporters of William of Orange who settled in Northern Ireland and the white represents the peace that brings them together as a nation.
• In some Canadian cities, notably Toronto and Montreal, large scale St Patrick's Day parades are held, often on the Sunday closest to March 17th. The parade in Montreal has been held every year since 1824. However, the first recorded celebration of St Patrick's Day was in 1759 by Irish soldiers serving with the British army following their conquest of part of “New France”. In some places there are Irish cultural events. For instance, the Irish Association of Manitoba organizes a three-day festival of Irish culture in the week of St Patrick's Day.
• At the beginning of March, McDonald's offers its Shamrock Shake.
• On any given day 5.5 million pints of Guinness, the famous Irish stout brand, are consumed around the world, but on St. Patrick's Day, that number more than doubles to 13 million pints. Guinness was first brewed in Dublin in 1759 and is the unofficial drink of St Patrick's Day.
• Traditional Irish dishes often served at St Patrick's Day celebrations in Canada can include Colcannon or Irish stew. Colcannon is a dish of mashed potatoes mixed with kale or cabbage and Irish stew is traditionally made with lamb and root vegetables. Traditional Irish drinks include stout, a dark beer and whiskey. The Americans put their own twist on it and hold that corned beef and cabbage is the traditional dish but the Irish would be more likely to have bacon with their cabbage.
• St. Patrick's Day did not become a national holiday in Ireland until 1903 and all the pubs were closed for the holiday, so until the 20th century you couldn't celebrate with a pint in an Irish drinking establishment on this day.
• When celebrating St. Patrick's Day raise your pint and wish your drinking buddies “Slainté!”(pronounced SLAN-cha) which means “health!”.