Saint Patrick’s Day is my second-favorite holiday. Like Halloween, I appreciate what the day represents in modern times to me, not in celebration of dead guys that were canonized by the Catholic Church. Let’s take a look at some things you may not have known about the most Irish holiday.

Jumping right in to the historical stuff, Patrick was a real guy who lived about the fourth century. In Irish, his name is Pádraig, and he is the patron saint of Ireland. Kind of like how Moses the Black is the patron saint of Africa, and lived around the same time. I was just informed this morning that his original name wasn’t even Patrick and that he was probably Welsh.

The Catholic Church liked ol’ Pádraig because he went to Ireland from England to drive out the ‘snakes’. So he’s the opposite of my herpetologist friend Phil. Snakes are not indigenous to Ireland, so that was a metaphor for converting the native Pagans to Christianity. Fortunately, modern celebrations have nothing to do with that. The reason for the shamrock association is that supposedly St. Patrick used the three leaves to represent the Holy Trinity.

March 17th is celebrated as the death of Pádraig, who was buried in Downpatrick. A rather appropriate name for the town, I would say. The feast of St. Patrick has been an thing since the 1600’s. For the vast majority of that time, the holiday was strictly a church observance. So how did it become so popular?

Well, there’s the tradition of Lent. That’s a period of fasting that precedes Easter, which is no fun. Since March 17th falls during that time, the Church declared it was totally cool to feast and drink alcohol on that day. If that sounds familiar, that’s exactly the reason Mardi Gras came about. Literally meaning “Fat Tuesday”, people would go wild with feasting and partying it up before the observance of Lent.

You can probably see how the holiday evolved from a saint’s feast to what we know of today. Modern (highly commercialized) celebrations are about Irish pride and multiculturalism – after all, everyone is Irish on the 17th.

But not everyone is happy about that. Church people are upset that the honoring of St. Patrick really isn’t at the forefront. Some Irish would say that people are ‘appropriating their culture’ and promoting stereotypes. Fortunately, most people of the Irish persuasion don’t complain about such things. That’s why Lucky the Leprechaun is still allowed on cereal boxes and there aren’t rallies to ‘cancel’ Notre Dame University’s mascot.

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated in more countries than any other holiday. The largest celebration is in New York City, and there have even been celebrations in space.

Love it or hate it, St. Paddy’s isn’t going anywhere. Yes, “St. Patty’s” is incorrect and even offensive to some. But not the Irish 😉