St. Patty’s Day – Great day for the Irish
St. Patrick’s Day traditions and how they began
By Rosemary Fetter
On March 17, most Americans proudly wear green, even those lacking an ancestral connection to the Emerald Isle. The holiday is celebrated with gusto in the U.S. partly because America’s Irish population is the one of the country’s largest ethnic groups, second only to the Germans. (For reasons likely dating back to World War I, Oktoberfest never caught on quite like St. Patrick’s Day.)
Vintage St. Patricks Day Greetings bear the image of the patron saint of Ireland as well as the shamrock.
Irish-Americans number more than 34 million, more than eight times the modest 4 million souls who still reside across the sea. If the Scots-Irish and the Anglo-Irish are included, the numbers go even higher.
Americans love St. Patrick’s Day parades, shamrocks, great music and green beer, but the details of the holiday are sometimes a little foggy. Here’s a brief look at St. Patrick’s Day symbols and traditions, and how they all began.
St. Patrick
The patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick was originally a Welshman named Maewyn, born sometime around 375 A.D. Although both parents were Roman Catholic, Patrick admitted to being a heathen until age 16, when a group of marauders kidnapped him and took him back to Ireland. During the next six years of slavery, Patrick spent a lot of time alone and finally saw the light. After escaping to Gaul (France), he joined a monastery and determined to convert the green isle to Christianity. He became Ireland’s second bishop; an apparent charmer who won converts by the score and traveled through the countryside founding monasteries, schools and churches. By the time he died on March 17, 461 (or thereabouts), he had converted Ireland to Christianity. Although Patrick has been credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland, the country was never troubled by this particular reptile. The legend likely refers to the serpent symbol of the pagan Druids.
Americans may think four-leaf clovers are synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day, but that’s not the case. The Holy Trinity symbolism of the three-leaf variety makes it the preferred St. Patricks shamrock.
The Shamrock
St. Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity, telling his flock how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day.
The Blarney Stone
The bluestone block called Blarney Stone was set into the battlements of the Cormac castle in 1446. Kissing the stone supposedly endows one with “the gift of gab.”
The word, “blarney,” may have originated in the 16th century, during the reign of England’s Elizabeth I. The Queen wanted all the Irish lords to swear allegiance to her, but Cormac McDermot MacCarthy, chieftain of Blarney Castle in County Cork, avoided commitment by flattering and placating Elizabeth. She finally declared in frustration: “This is all Blarney!”
Anyone who wants to kiss the blarney stone (or at least give it a big hug) need not go to Ireland. Fitzgeralds Casino in Black Hawk has its very own blarney stone, and visitors are invited to drop by and pay their respects.
The Leprechaun
Leprechauns are “fairy folk” who usually take the form of cantankerous and mischief-making old men. Cobblers or shoemakers by trade, they are supposedly the keepers of great treasure crocks. According to legend, if anyone keeps an eye fixed upon the leprechaun, he cannot escape; the moment the eye is withdrawn, he vanishes.
In 1959, Walt Disney released a film called Darby O’Gill & the Little People, which introduced America to a cheerful, friendly leprechaun more like the Keebler elf, a purely American invention that has become an easily recognizable symbol of both St. Patrick’s Day and Ireland.
St. Patrick’s Day
The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place in New York City on March 17, 1766, and consisted mostly of a contingent of Irish soldiers. Today, the parade is traditional in many cities, with the largest celebrations held in Chicago, Savannah and New York City, respectively.
The town of Leadville has an interesting custom of holding a St. Patrick’s Day Practice Parade in September, with bagpipers and Irish dancers led by a bright green fire truck. It’s a sight to behold.
‘Oh Danny Boy’
Very few St. Patrick’s Day celebrations go by without someone bursting into that great Irish-American song, O Danny Boy, leaving not a dry eye in the house. Actually, an Englishman, Frederick Weatherly, published the song in 1913, using an old Irish aire, Londonderry Air. Popularized by Irish-American vaudevillians, the tune became an Irish favorite, often sung at funerals. Although some maintain the song deals with a father watching his son go off to war or leave the country during the famine, publisher’s notes reveal that, as many of us suspected all along, it’s actually about a woman bidding farewell to her lover.
Black Irish
A term believed to have originated in the United States, black Irish commonly refers to dark brown or black hair appearing in persons of Irish descent in contrast to the blond, light brown or red hair color usually ascribed to the Irish. According to a recent Irish study, dark hair is common in Ireland: more than 40 percent of the population have dark brown hair, 35 percent have medium brown hair and another 3 percent have black hair.
Corned Beef, Cabbage and Green Beer
On St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, the traditional fare was Irish bacon and cabbage. Irish-American immigrants found bacon too expensive and substituted the less costly corned beef.
Beer has always been an Irish favorite, although, no true Irishman would sully his stout with green coloring. This is strictly an American invention.
The Shillelagh
A sturdy reliable walking cane made out of Irish blackthorn, the shillelagh’s sturdiness and resistance to warping, chipping or discoloration made it a favorite of Europeans.
Wearing Orange On St. Patrick’s Day
The basis of this relatively recent practice is both religious and political: Irish Protestants, mostly in Northern Ireland, wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day and Catholics wear green. Ever since the Protestant King William of Orange (III) took the throne of Britain in 1690, Protestant Irish have been known as “Orangemen.”
