We have officially entered the month of March and people everywhere are already starting to prep their stomachs for the large amount of corned beef, cabbage and green beer they plan to consume on March 17 — otherwise known as St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patty’s Day has not always been the beer-loving holiday that we celebrate today all around the world. Its story goes all the way back to around 400 AD and involves the Patron Saint of Ireland, St. Patrick.

The St. Patrick Cathedral in New York City. Photo provided by Izabella Zadra

History
St. Patrick was said to have been born in 384 AD; there are many debates on where he was actually born but it was for sure not in Ireland! When Patrick was 16-years-old, he was captured and brought to Ireland where he worked as a slave for a few years. Once Patrick ended up escaping, he eventually returned back to Ireland to spread the word of Christianity — in the U.S. alone, there are 450 churches named after St. Patrick with the most well-known one being the St. Patrick Cathedral in New York.

A common story that people tend to associate with St. Patrick coming to Ireland is that of him standing on a hill and banishing all the snakes from Ireland into the sea. Researchers have debunked this saying that snakes never even occupied Ireland during these times and that this story was most likely a metaphor for St. Patrick introducing Christianity to the people of Ireland and banishing current pagan practices.

The holiday stayed strictly religious for many years until the Irish people started to immigrate to the United States with their St. Patty’s Day traditions. The first-ever St. Patty’s Day parade took place in 1737 in Boston which was the start of the new and improved version of St. Patty’s Day.

After that parade, the traditions we know today started to skyrocket, but just in the U.S.— in Ireland, St. Patrick’s day was still considered an important religious holiday and there was not an open pub insight. It was not until the 1970s that leaders of Ireland saw how much fun the rest of the world was having on the holiday that they decided to open pubs and hype up St. Patrick's Day traditions for tourist purposes.

Traditions and Symbols

Some of the biggest traditions of St. Patrick's Day involve beer and certain types of food. If you are like me, every year on St. Patty’s Day we eat corned beef and cabbage. This is not traditional Irish food by any means but it became accustomed in the U.S.

In Ireland, most people would be caught eating pork and potatoes on this holiday, but once they started to immigrate to America, the only things they could afford were corned beef (subbed for the pork) and cabbage (subbed for the potatoes). This was a tradition that stuck and cabbage companies are grateful for that — the week before St. Patrick’s Day, cabbage shipment increases by about 70%!

The color green is also a well-known custom that comes to mind when thinking about St. Patrick's Day and the month of March in general. Immigrants from Ireland started to wear green in America to express the idea of peace and their Irish culture which once again started to rub off on everyone else.

Legend says that if you wear green, you are invisible to a leprechaun and that’s why if you are caught without green on St. Patty’s Day, you can expect a pinch from a leprechaun as punishment. Chicago takes this myth so seriously that every year they use over 50 lbs of green dye to turn the Chicago River green!

Whether you decide to press your luck this St. Patty’s Day or steal a leprechaun's pot of gold, be safe! According to a study done at Brown University, St. Patricks Day is the biggest day of the year for high school and college students binge drinking which can have horrible long-term effects on the body.

On average, one person will die in an alcohol-induced car accident every 30 minutes on St. Patty’s day and 62% of fatal crashes that happen on the day involve alcohol (The Recovery Village).

It is not a shame to celebrate sober either, but if you feel like drinking, it is a good idea to designate a driver or call a Lyft — UMD students get two Lyft passes every month, just check your emails!

It’s not easy being green: The story of St. Patrick's Day and how we continue to celebrate the Irish holiday