It’s St Patrick’s Day on Wednesday – time to dig out something green and prepare your stomach for it’s annual dose of Irish stew and Guinness. Here’s ten things we bet you didn’t know about Ireland’s national holiday.
1) St. Patrick’s Day is observed on March 17 as that is the feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. He is believed to have died on March 17 in the year 461 AD.
2) St Patrick was born in 385 AD. At the age of 16 he was captured and sold into slavery.
3) According to his writings he believed God spoke to him in a dream – telling him to leave Ireland. He eventually settled in France and lived in a monastery for 12 years. He returned to Ireland in his 30s as a missionary.
4) St Patrick used the shamrock to demonstrate the Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish. The three leaves were said to represent God’s three personas – The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost.
5) St Patrick is said to have given a sermon that drove all the snakes from Ireland. Of course, no snakes were ever native to Ireland, and some people think this is a metaphor for the conversion of the pagans.
6) St Patrick is also credited with establishing the Leap Year tradition of women proposing to men.
7) Things said to bring good luck on Saint Patrick’s Day – finding a four-leaf clover, wearing green and kissing the blarney stone.
St Patrick’s Day is widely celebrated in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, the United States and New Zealand.
9) In Chicago the Chicago River is dyed green with a special dye that only lasts a few hours. There has been a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston, Massachusetts since 1737. Montreal is home to Canada’s longest running St. Patrick’s Day parade, which began in 1824.
9) In Raglan Blacksand Cafe is the place to be on St Patrick’s Day.
