Happy St Patrick's Day !

"Everybody's Irish on March 17th"

On March 17th, we celebrated St Patrick's Day, and as you can imagine it, it was amazing! All the streets and pubs were full of people wearing green clothes and make up, singing, shouting and drinking Guinness.
There also was a big parade, but unfortunately, we had difficulties in seeing it (indeed, people woke up very early to take a good place, we didn't).

 

The parade begun on Parnell square and finished at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. This year, the parade theme was The city of Sciences, HOW? WHAT? WHY?. We could see marching bands and some fun and eccentric floats as you can see on the pictures.

It can seem really surprising, but St Patrick's Day isn't an important day for Irish people. In reality, most of them hate it, because the country is invaded by a wave of tourists.

Let’s explain who was St Patrick and how this day was born.

 

• Who was St Patrick ?

St Patrick

St Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland.

When he was about 16, he was captured from Wales by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the Roman Catholic Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked. By the seventh century, he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland.

Saint Patrick's Day is observed on March 17, the date of Patrick's death.

• When did it become a feast day ? 

Saint Patrick's Day was made an official feast day in the early seventeenth century, and has gradually become a celebration of Irish culture in general.
In 1903, Saint Patrick's Day became an official public holiday in Ireland.
The first Saint Patrick's Day parade was held in Dublin in 1931.
In the mid-1990s the government of the Republic of Ireland 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. 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.

• Why do we have to wear something 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 Day as early as the 17th century. Saint Patrick is said to have used the shamrock 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, to make a political statement, Irish soldiers wore full green uniforms on 17 March in hopes of catching public attention. That's why everybody wear something green on St Patrick's Day.