Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

Tinsley & Higgins ready for St. Patrick’s Day
Staff Photo by Jeff Depew

Staff Photo by Jeff Depew

March 17, 2014, marks the annual celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, a cultural and religious holiday held on the alleged death date of Saint Patrick, the most popular patron-saint of Ireland. The holiday originated as a religious celebration, and to many observers remains one, as the holiday was officially placed on the liturgical calendar and observed by the Catholic Church in the 1600s. The day is also known as Saint Patrick’s Feast Day, and is observed as such by the Church of Ireland. One of the most popular customs on Saint Patrick’s Day is the wearing of green, a tradition that has roots as far back as the 1680s. The color green has been associated with Ireland for only a few decades longer, with the Irish Catholic Confederation using the green harp flag as a symbol in the 1640s. The color blue is also heavily associated with Saint Patrick and was made popular by the Order of Saint Patrick, an Anglo-Irish chivalric order. Nowadays, the holiday is seen as a day of cultural pride. The Republic of Ireland began utilizing Saint Patrick’s Day as a showcase of national and cultural pride in the 1990s, with the first official Saint Patrick’s Day Festival being held on March 17, 1996. The Festival is immensely popular, and held approximately 1 million attendees during the 2009 five day celebration. Other countries, ironically, have had massive festivals for many years. Canada, for example, has had a large parade every year in Montreal, which has been organized by the United Irish Societies of Montreal, since 1929. The parade, itself, has been held since 1824. While Saint Patrick’s Day is not a legal holiday in many states in the U.S., it remains one of the most popular holidays of the year, celebrating Irish and Irish-American heritage with food, drink, religious celebration, and many parades and festivals.