St Patrick’s Day

So, what exactly is St. Patrick’s Day and how did it all begin?

St. Patrick was born as Maewyn Succat in Britain, who was kidnapped, taken to Ireland and forced to be a slave. After he turned to God, he had a dream from heaven telling him to escape and go back to Britain. Once there, he had another dream telling him to go back to Ireland as a missionary and teach the Irish about Christianity, which he did. He served the Lord for 30 years before dying on March 17^th, 461 AD, using his Christian name Patrick.

A religious holiday was then adopted for named Saint. Each year a religious holiday was held on the day of his death with a feast. Eventually it gained in popularity and began as a day of reprieve during the lent season, which included drinking ale. It did not become a public holiday until 1903!

The color of this day used to be blue yet was changed to green due to the fact that St. Patrick used the green clover in his teachings to describe

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In the mid 1990’s, the Irish government began a campaign to use the holiday to showcase the Ireland and it’s culture by having a festival. It began as a daylong festival and immediately grew to five days including concerts and fireworks.

Here in the US, the Chicago River is died green each year along with many other things like beer and eggs to celebrate the day and people even wear as many green clothes as possible as well as hats and other Irish traditional wears. Be careful, if you do not wear green on St. Patty’s Day, you’re likely to get pinched! Where did that come from?