Saint Patrick's Day is a religious holiday on the 17th of March. It is named after Saint Patrick AD 387-461),
the most commonly recognised of the patron saints of Ireland . It began as a purely Catholic holiday and
became an official feast day in the early 17th century. It has gradually become more of a secular celebration
of Ireland's culture It is a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland Northern Ireland ,Newfoundland and
Labrador and in Montserrat . It is also widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora , especially in places such as
Great Britain , Canada , the United States , Argentina , Australia , New Zealand , and Montserrat , among others.
Saint Patrick, Galway.
Little is known of Patrick's early life, though it is known that he was born in Roman Britain in the 4th century,
into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father and grandfather were deacons in the Church. At the age of
sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave. It is believed he was held
somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, possibly Mayo, but the exact location is unknown. According to his
Confession, he was told by God in a dream to flee from captivity to the coast, where he would board a ship
and return to Britain. Upon returning, he quickly joined the Church in Auxerre in Gaul and studied to be a priest.
In 432, he again said that he was called back to Ireland, though as a bishop, to Christianize the Irish from their
native polytheism . Irish folklore tells that one of his teaching methods included using the shamrock to explain
the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Irish people. After nearly thirty years of evangelism , he died on 17 March 461, and according to tradition, was buried at Downpatrick. Although there were other more successful missions to Ireland from Rome, Patrick endured as the principal champion of Irish Christianity and is held in esteem in the Irish Church .
Wearing of the green.
Originally, the colour associated with Saint Patrick was blue Over the years the colour green and its
association with Saint Patrick's day grew. Green ribbons and shamrocks were worn in celebration of
St Patrick's as early as the 17th century. He is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant,
to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish , and the wearing and display of shamrocks and
shamrock-inspired designs have become a ubiquitous feature of the day. In the 1798 rebellion,
in hopes of making a political statement, Irish soldiers wore full green uniforms on 17 March in hopes of
catching public attention. The phrase "the wearing of the green", meaning to wear a shamrock on one's
clothing, derives from a song of the same name
In Galway Ireland.
According to legend, Saint Patrick used the shamrock , a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish people.
Saint Patrick's feast day, as a kind of national day, was already being celebrated by the Irish in Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. In later times he become more and more widely known as the patron of Ireland. Saint Patrick's feast day was finally placed on the universal liturgical calendar in the Catholic Church due to the influence of Waterford -born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding in the early 1600s. Saint Patrick's Day thus became a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. The church calendar avoids the observance of saints' feasts during certain solemnities, moving the saint's day to a time outside those periods. Saint Patrick's Day is occasionally affected by this requirement, when 17 March falls during Holy Week This happened in 1940, when Saint Patrick's Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday , and again in 2008, where it was officially observed on 14 March (15 March being used for St. Joseph, which had to be moved from March 19), although the secular celebration still took place on 17 March. Saint Patrick's Day will not fall within Holy Week again until 2160 (In other countries, St. Patrick's feast day is also March 17, but liturgical celebration is omitted when impeded by Sunday or by Holy Week.)
In 1903, Saint Patrick's became an official public holiday in Ireland. This was thanks to the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, an act of the United Kingdom Parliament introduced by Irish MP James O'Mara O'Mara later introduced the law that required that pubs and bars be closed on 17 March after drinking got out of hand, a provision that was repealed in the 1970s. The first Saint Patrick's Day parade held in the Irish Free State was held in Dublin in 1931 and was reviewed by the then Minister of Defence Desmond Fitzgerald . Although secular celebrations now exist, the holiday remains a religious observance in Ireland, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland Traditional Saint Patrick's Day badges from the early 20th century, photographed at the Museum of Country Life in County Mayo
In the mid-1990s the Irish government began a campaign to use Saint Patrick's Day to showcase Ireland and its culture. The government set up a group called St. Patrick's Festival, with the aim to: Offer a national festival that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebrations in the world and promote excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement, and marketing activity. Provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent, (and those who sometimes wish they were Irish) to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations. Project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal, as we approach the new millennium.
The first Saint Patrick's Festival was held on 17 March 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long; more than 675,000 people attended the 2009 parade. Overall 2009's five day festival saw close to 1 million visitors, who took part in festivities that included concerts, outdoor theatre performances, and fireworks.
The topic of the 2004 St. Patrick's Symposium was "Talking Irish," during which the nature of Irish identity, economic success, and the future were discussed. Since 1996, there has been a greater emphasis on celebrating and projecting a fluid and inclusive notion of "Irishness" rather than an identity based around traditional religious or ethnic allegiance. The week around Saint Patrick's Day usually involves Irish language speakers using more Irish during seachtain na Gaeilge ("Irish Week").
As well as Dublin, many other Irish cities, towns, and villages hold their own parades and festivals, including Cork , Belfast , Derry , Galway , Kilkenny , Limerick , and Waterford
The biggest celebrations outside Dublin are in Downpatrick , County Down , where Saint Patrick is rumoured to be buried. In 2004, according to Down District Council , the week-long St. Patrick's Festival had more than 2,000 participants and 82 floats, bands, and performers and was watched by more than 30,000 people.
The shortest St Patrick's Day parade in the world takes place in Dripsey, Cork . The parade lasts just 100 yards and travels between the village's two pubs.Sign on a beam in the Guinness Storehouse , Dublin, a commercial museum, promoting the drinking of Guinness stout on St. Patrick's.
Christian leaders in Ireland have expressed concern about the secularisation of St Patrick's. In The Word magazine's March 2007 issue, Fr. Vincent Twomey wrote, "It is time to reclaim St Patrick's Day as a church festival." He questioned the need for "mindless alcohol-fuelled revelry" and concluded that "it is time to bring the piety and the fun together."
Welcome to St-Patricks-Day page!
Dedicated to the Irish & Irish at Heart all around the World
St. Patrick's Day in Galway is celebrated by the Irish and Irish at Heart in big cities and small towns alike with parades, "wearing of the green," Music and songs, Irish food and drink, and activities for kids such as crafts, coloring and games. Its a time for fun. Some communities even go so far as to dye rivers or streams green! See all the Parades & Events going on around the World to celebrate St Patricks Day 2013 here and find your nearest Irish Pub!
Well now St. Patrick's Day wouldn't exist if not for the man himself! But how much do we know about him? Did you know that he spent six years of slavery in Ireland until he escaped and undertook religious training abroad? Read more about this great man!