The History of Ireland’s St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, and that means parades, shamrocks, wearing green and, of course, one or two pints of Guinness at your local pub. 

But what is this holiday celebrating, and how did it begin?

Here’s all you need to know about St. Patrick’s Day and the man behind the holiday!

The meaning behind St. Patrick’s Day and March 17

Who was St Patrick?

We all know St. Patrick as the patron saint of Ireland and the historical figure behind St. Patrick’s Day, but who is he and how did he get his very own holiday?

Well, it turns out that St. Patrick is neither Irish nor a canonized saint at all. In fact, he was born in England in the early 5th century, back when the area was still under the rule of the Roman Empire as Roman Britain. His name wasn’t even Patrick, either! It was Maewyn Succal which, arguably, doesn't make for a super fun-sounding holiday. But we’ll get to that later.

When he was a young man, Maewyn was kidnapped from his village by Irish raiders and brought to Ireland, where he was kept in captivity as a slave. He managed to escape six years later and returned to England, where he joined the church and was given a new name — Patricius. 

Or, as we know him today, Patrick.

While we aren’t one-hundred percent sure whether Patrick joined the early Roman Catholic Church or another church, it’s likely that he was part of the Celtic Christian church that preceded the more formal Roman Catholic Church, which only officially began a century later in 590 A.D. 

Either way, Patrick returned to Ireland as a missionary not long after his work in the church began. While in Ireland, he built churches, established monasteries, started schools and spent his life converting the Irish people from paganism to Christianity. He also produced several well-known writings to the British church berating them for their mistreatment of Irish Christians, such as the “Confessio” and his “Letter to Coroticus.”

Patrick died on March 17, 461 and was buried in what is now the town of Downpatrick in Northern Ireland.

Since his death, the mythology and symbolism behind Patrick’s influence in Ireland grew, and he became known as St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland. Despite the name, he was never officially canonized a saint, though the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and the Eastern Orthodox Churches claim him as a venerated member of their history who brought both enlightenment and Christianity to Ireland. 

The Roman Catholic Church celebrated St. Patrick on Feast Day on March 17 since the early 9th century, and in 1903 the day officially became a national holiday in Ireland.

Symbolism & myths around St. Patrick

St. Patrick’s legacy is centered around bringing Christianity to Ireland, and in the sixteen centuries since his death he has certainly gained some specific symbolism and iconography.

Driving snakes from Ireland

For one, St. Patrick is known for casting snakes away from Ireland, and since there are a significant lack of the long reptiles there today, it seems to be a valid achievement, right?

Except for the fact that there have never been snakes in Ireland, just like there are no snakes in New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland and other islands around the world. The water surrounding these islands are too cold or too vast for snakes to have ever migrated there naturally, and even though Ireland was once connected to the surrounding land masses way back when, the ice ages prevented any reptiles of the sort from living there. 

It’s more likely that the Catholic Church used the snake myth as an allegory to represent driving paganism from the island, which mirrors the origin story of Halloween that inserted the Church into pagan traditions that had already been around for centuries. 

The shamrock

St. Patrick is also associated with the shamrock and, eventually, the color green. 

Legend has it that St. Patrick would use a three-leaved shamrock as a tool for explaining the Holy Trinity – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as part of a single entity. The shamrock itself does not exist, but is likely based on the native wood sorrel and clover species that grow on the island. 

The tradition of wearing shamrocks and green clothes on St. Patrick’s Day became popular in the 18th century as a symbol of Irish pride. 

St. Patrick’s Day today

Here in the United States, St. Patrick’s Day is a day to celebrate all things Irish and Ireland, and it’s usually done through parades and, of course, a trip to the pub.

St. Patrick’s Day arrived in the United States along with Irish immigrants starting in the 1700s, with a marked increase in the 1840s in the midst of the Great Potato Famine. New York City and Boston saw the earliest and largest influx of Irish immigrants, and it was there that Irish communities began to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with parades and large festivities. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade recorded in the United States was in Boston in 1737, and New York City saw its first parade a few decades later in 1762. 

Today, over 100 cities across the U.S. celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with parades. The City of Chicago dyes the Chicago River with over 40 pounds of green dye each year – a tradition dating back to 1962 – and its strong Irish community in the South Side has a parade that rivals that of the downtown one in both influence and size. 

The New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, however, still holds the record for the largest and most-watched St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world, with over 150,000 participants and 2 million spectators attending annually. 

So, if you’re heading out to a bar or pub this St. Patrick’s Day to participate in one of the 13 million pints of Guinness consumed worldwide on the holiday, remember how this fascinating display of Irish culture started and how it’s been trickling down through the generations for over a thousand years!

Sláinte!

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Featured photo courtesy Pixabay/EyestetixStudio