Once a year, people of Irish descent worldwide celebrate their identity on St Patrick’s Day.
Exactly how they do it varies. Some go to special masses to venerate the saint himself, while others simply get drunk.
St Patrick’s Day falls every year on 17 March. It’s a public holiday in Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as the Caribbean island of Montserrat and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, due to Irish emigrant influence.
In ordinary circumstances, there are also parades and parties in hundreds of towns and cities from California to Malaysia with one thing in common: the wearing of the colour green.
However, for the second year running, celebrations in 2021 are being severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Once more, lockdown restrictions in place around the world have forced the cancellation of the vast majority of large-scale events, with online parties replacing sprawling parades.
Who was St Patrick?
St Patrick is the patron saint of Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Boston, engineers and – most commonly in the public consciousness – Ireland. Born at the end of the fourth century in Roman Britain, he was the grandson of a priest – though was not particularly devout as a boy. His life changed at the age of sixteen when he was kidnapped by raiders and taken to Ireland as a slave. He spent six years working as a shepherd and praying, developing a deeper relationship with God, until one day he was said have heard a voice.
“Look – your ship is ready,” it said, according to the account of the saint himself in his “Confession”, which tells his early life story.
Fleeing his master, he found a ship to take him back to Britain, where he returned to his family and continued to study Christianity there and in France. Then came a vision in which a horde of Irish appeared to him and said: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.”
What did St Patrick do?
He headed to Ireland again, this time as a missionary. His arrival is dated to 432 AD, and marks a major moment in Irish history. He set about converting the previously pagan, druidic island to Christianity with remarkable success.
Soon after, a monastic system on the continental model popped up in Ireland, and the country became literate, writing in Latin and then in Irish using the Latin alphabet. Ireland can claim the longest unbroken written record in Europe, stretching through the Dark Ages.
Folk stories say Patrick founded 300 churches and converted 100,000 people.
He’s generally associated with the northern half of the island, and specifically Armagh – where the most senior Catholic and Anglican bishops are based – and Downpatrick, where he is said to be buried.
What about miracles?
The main miracle associated with St Patrick, and taught to all schoolchildren, is driving the snakes out of Ireland.
Attacked by some serpents while undergoing a 40-day fast on a hill, he drove his staff into the ground and sent them (and all other snakes in the country) into the sea.
As a result, unsurprisingly, he’s often invoked against snakes. There are no native snakes in Ireland to this day, but that could be to do with the climate and the vagaries of the Ice Age thaw.
The story of the shamrock
The shamrock is a symbol of Ireland, from the crest on the rugby shirt to the flags of Montreal, Montserrat and the Boston Celtics.
That’s because of Patrick, who reportedly used it to illustrate the nature of the Holy Trinity to a local (pagan) king. The three leaves – not four, like the clover – represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one.
Where do they celebrate St Patrick’s Day?
The day has been celebrated since the 1700s in parts of the United States, which has long drawn emigrants from Ireland.
It’s not an official day off in the holiday-averse States, but the format associated with the day even in Ireland was heavily influenced by festivities in cities such as Chicago and Boston, where expats and associations parade through the streets. New York’s is the biggest on earth, with two million people lining midtown Manhattan to watch on.
In Ireland, every town usually has a parade, and the main parade in Dublin is televised live, with a million people taking part in long-weekend festivities.
Malta has a long tradition of celebrating, initiated by a regiment of Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the early 20th century, while Argentina’s unofficial parade attracts 20,000 revellers to a neighbourhood with several Irish bars in Buenos Aires.
The furthest celebrations afield, however, took place in 2011, when Irish-American astronaut Catherine Molloy played a 100-year-old Irish flute aboard the International Space Station to mark the day.
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