Well, a belated happy St. Patrick's day!
As a child, in school, every St Patrick's, we would dutifully make our shamrock in art class and have green decorations in the classroom. We were probably told an Irish story or maybe a bit about St. Patrick. Somehow, the excitement of St. Patrick's day never got to us. It didn't have any relevance for kids who lived out in the boonies and rarely got out of their local district.
St. Patrick has a long history. It is thought he brought Christianity to Ireland in the 5 th century and for a bonus he scared all the snakes out of Ireland. So St. Patrick is well known in Irish religious and cultural history.
St. Patrick's celebration spread to many parts of the world as the Irish were great travellers.
St. Patrick's day celebrations, as we know them today, were largely started in America. Some of the enthusiasm for parades went back to Ireland and now they have the best parades. So again religion and culture are celebrated. The Irish are inclusive as they keep saying everybody has a little Irish in them. So many people who are not Irish get caught up in St. Patrick's day celebrations.
Much of Europe had similar celebrations for St. Patrick and his bringing of Christianity.
A few bloggers posted on St. Patrick's Day.
Now there are many other patron Saints. I'm not up on all the saints.
One very interesting saint is St. Urho. He comes across as being the real McCoy but was a actually the creation of a Minnesotan in the 60's. He borrowed liberally from the St. Patrick story and invented a saint for the Finnish people of Minnesota. A tradition has been built up around St Urho and Minnesotans of Finnish backgrounds have wacky parades and parties. St. Urho day was originally celebrated in the summer. Today it is celebrated on March 16! St. Urho has now spread to Finland.
Only one blog I follow posted on St. Urho's day.
Now at age 77 I have never seen a st. Patrick's Day parade. We still don't have St. Patrick's day parades where I live.
Am I missing something?
It's my understanding that for many years the only place where St. Patrick's Day celebrations were not welcome was in Ireland itself, or to be more exact, Northern Ireland. I think that has changed in the last couple of decades though.
ReplyDeleteWe don't do anything to celebrate the day in our home although when I was in school we drew our shamrocks and leprechauns and other symbols just as you did :)
There was a huge American influence on the Irish culture. I did wear a green shirt on Friday.
DeleteI think St. Patrick's day in America is just an excuse to get drunk.
ReplyDeleteBut most of those who use St. Patrick's day to get drunk would get drunk anyway!
DeleteI spoke to my niece who lives in Germany today. She had just come back from a St. Patrick's Day party :)
ReplyDeleteShe's right , there's lots of St. Patricks celebrations on the continent.
DeleteIn elementary school. long ago, St Patrick's day was all about wearing green or you could get pinched.
ReplyDeleteI just recently learned about St Urho's Day, and now I have just learned that it was made up on Minnesota! Uff Dah.
Middle school kids go nuts over the pinching bit so I always found as much green as possible to wear.
DeleteI was born in Liverpool in England. It was nicknamed the capital of Ireland because of the very large Irish population. It was impossible not to have seen a St Patrick's Day celebration (and a date never forgotten by me because it was my Uncle's Birthday).
ReplyDeleteThe Irish were great movers.
DeleteThe patron saint of England is St George but over here in England we hardly recognise St George's Day. However, most pubs and clubs do promote St Patrick's Day. It is bizarre and this didn't happen when I was a boy out in "the boonies".
ReplyDeleteYour boonies were not as good as my boonies! Western Canada is not big on saints. We have rodeos but not saints parades.
DeleteHi and goodmorning from Norway!
ReplyDeleteI have not heard about ST .Patricks day..Is it a catholic thing?I have only seen one friend on Facebook thats has posted something about it..Glad you shared the information:))Anita
Yes, it's origin is definitely Catholic.
DeleteWe don't have them either here, only some carnaval parades in the south catholic part of our country. Religions are not such a big thing here anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe religious influence here is not what it used to be.
DeleteOH, gosh, I remember those construction paper shamrocks, even the smell of the green construction paper! It was always faded green construction paper. Must have been stored on the window ledge. ☘
ReplyDeleteI wonder if school kids still make their shamrocks?
DeleteWe had a parade in town, which I didn't attend because it was raining (of course), and then on the day itself I got pinched for not wearing green! That's the extent of my "holiday" event. :-)
ReplyDeleteI did wear a green shirt. Middle school kids insisted I wear a green shirt.
DeleteThanks for taking a look back at St Patrick’s Day history. I wore a green shirt on Friday but most folks didn’t seem to notice. Back when teaching, some of the kids would really get into that wearing green thing. As for the Parade, I think it’s mostly folks playing bagpipes and waving a bunch of green stuff around, so you’re not missing much. However, just to make sure, you can watch the whole (5+ hours) of the Parade in New York City on YouTube https://youtu.be/W6LJ0eW2xJc Enjoy! By the way, I loved that comment you left on my last post. You are right, I spend a lot of my day watching ships and skies. :-)
ReplyDeleteI think I'll pass on the youtube of the New York parade.
DeleteExcellent post! We didn't do much about it when I was a kid in downtown Toronto.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, I never touched upon it as it ALWAYS fell during March Break!
I integrated a lot of the other celebrations into my curriculum, just because it was fun having a theme around which to create art, drama, and poetry and stories. Amazing how someone could invent St. Urho and it caught on!!!!
I sometimes had St. Patrick's stuff up in middle school.
DeleteI've never been to a St. Patrick's Day parade either even though I lived in Montreal for 44 years and there was one annually as far back as I can remember. And when we lived in Kingston, we never went to that one either. Maybe one day!
ReplyDeleteAt least you have a choice. Here Mar 17 is usually too old for a parade.
DeleteI am Czech so we have St Josephs day, but I wore green for the Irish
ReplyDeleteI think many groups have patron saints but few celebrate like he Irish.
DeleteI've never been to one, they are more rare in the Southern United States
ReplyDeleteBut would you go to a parade if there was one close to you?
DeleteI doubt you've missed out on much, except maybe pee-warm green beer.
ReplyDeleteWell I've had the beer but no parade.
DeleteAnd in Chicago, they even dye the river green which I've never been happy about. I don't like the idea of throwing anything into waterways that should be kept as clean as possible. But that's just me. In Chicago on St. Patrick's Day everybody is a bit Irish and we've gotten into the habit of always having our corned beef and cabbage. Now that we've moved to Hawaii, we turned my mother into a little Irish too. Granted my sister-in-law and daughter-in-law are both Irish-American so we do celebrate in their honor as well.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, St. Patrick's Day Parades are less about St. Patrick and more about getting drunk. Sad to say.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should pray to St. Patrick to scare all the squirrels out of my garden?! If it worked on snakes, why not?
I've gone to the parades. Even though we didn't have Irish in the family line (that we're aware of), my mother always made something for the occasion- Irish stew, cake with some stout, that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteTwo of my friends decorated our common area. They left out the booze tell it all.
ReplyDeleteI like green so I can handle that. We at school did same as you. That was about it.
I know several Finlanders from the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly had me fooled about their "Patron Saint."....:)