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Saint Patrick’s Day

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Introduction

Saint Patrick’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day, holiday honoring Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is celebrated annually on March 17, his feast day. Saint Patrick was a missionary in the 5th century ad who is credited with converting Ireland to Christianity. St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday in Ireland. It is also celebrated by people of Irish descent in many other countries, especially by Irish Americans in the United States.

One popular St. Patrick’s Day tradition is wearing green clothing. Green, the national color of Ireland, symbolizes the island’s lush landscape. The main symbol associated with the holiday is the shamrock, a small three-leafed clover or clover-like plant. According to legend, St. Patrick used the shamrock, because of its three leaves, to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Irish people. The shamrock is now the national emblem of Ireland.

St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland

In Ireland, St. Patrick's Day is an important religious holiday celebrating the conversion of the Irish to Christianity. Businesses are closed, except for some restaurants and pubs. People attend church services honoring St. Patrick and learn about his life. Many Irish people wear sprigs of real shamrock and greet each other by saying, "Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh," or "May the blessings of St. Patrick be with you." Many enjoy a traditional meal that includes colcannon—boiled potatoes and cabbage mashed together with butter. The day is also seen as a reprieve from the sober weeks of Lent, and adults may drink a pint of ale (called “drowning the shamrock”) and allow their children some candy.

Until recently, Ireland held few parades or secular celebrations on St. Patrick’s Day. However, in 1995 the government of Ireland established the St. Patrick’s Day Festival with the goal of creating a national festival “that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebrations in the world.” The four-day festival, launched in 1996 and held annually in Dublin, features a major parade on St. Patrick’s Day as well as music and dance performances, food, crafts, and a fireworks display. The event is Ireland’s largest annual celebration.

St. Patrick’s Day in the United States and Canada

Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day has been a tradition in the United States since 1737, when the Charitable Irish Society of Boston organized the first St. Patrick’s Day parade. New York City’s parade began in 1762. St. Patrick's Day was even acknowledged by General George Washington during the American Revolution. In 1780, during the Continental Army’s bitter winter encampment in Morristown, New Jersey, Washington permitted his troops, many of whom were of Irish descent, a holiday on March 17. This event is now known as the St. Patrick's Day Encampment of 1780.

Today, more than 100 U.S. cities hold St. Patrick’s Day parades. The parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City is the largest and most famous. The parade traditionally stops at St. Patrick's Cathedral for a blessing of the marchers by the cardinal of New York. The St. Patrick’s Day parade in Savannah, Georgia, first held in 1824, is one of the largest and oldest in the United States. In Canada, Montréal’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, first held in 1824, is the oldest in the country. Toronto has held a large parade since 1988.

Popular St. Patrick’s Day customs in the United States and Canada include drinking beer that has been colored green, eating corned beef and cabbage, wearing shamrock pins and green clothing, and generally celebrating all things Irish. In Chicago, the Chicago River is dyed green, a tradition started in 1962.

In part from MSN Encyclopedia Article from Encarta http://encarta.msn.com/artcenter_/browse.html
http://hnn.us/articles/630.html

36 million. Number of U.S. residents who claim Irish ancestry. This number is almost nine times the population of Ireland itself (slightly more than 4 million). Irish is the nation’s second most frequently reported ancestry, trailing only German.
Sources: 2006 American Community Survey <http://factfinder.census.gov> and
International Data Base <http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/population/current/popmig.pdf>

24% Percent of Massachusetts residents who are of Irish ancestry. This compares with a corresponding rate of 12 percent for the nation as a whole. Source: 2006 American Community Survey <http://factfinder.census.gov>

Irish-Americans Today

31% Percentage of people of Irish ancestry, 25 or older, who had a bachelor's degree or more education. In addition, 91 percent of Irish-Americans in this age group had at least a high school diploma. For the nation as a whole, the corresponding rates were 27 percent and 84 percent. Source: 2006 American Community Survey <http://factfinder.census.gov>

$54,531
Median income for households headed by an Irish-American, higher than the $48,451 for all households. In addition, 9 percent of people of Irish
ancestry were in poverty, lower than the rate of 13 percent for all Americans.
Source: 2006 American Community Survey <http://factfinder.census.gov>

38% Percentage of employed civilian Irish-Americans 16 or older who work in management, professional and related occupations. Additionally, 28 percent work in sales and office occupations; 15 percent in service occupations; 10 percent in production, transportation and material moving occupations; and 9 percent in construction, extraction, maintenance and repair occupations.Source: 2006 American Community Survey < http://factfinder.census.gov>

72% Percentage of householders of Irish ancestry who own the home in which they live, with the remainder renting. For the nation as a whole, the homeownership rate was 67 percent. Source: 2006 American Community Survey <http://factfinder.census.gov>

Trade With the "Old Sod"

$22.9 billion The value of U.S. imports from Ireland for January to September 2007. Meanwhile, the United States exported $6.6 billion worth of goods to Ireland. Source: Foreign Trade Statistics <http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/www/ >

Places to Spend the Day

4Number of places in the United States named Shamrock, the floral emblem of Ireland. Mount Gay-Shamrock, W.Va., and Shamrock, Texas, were the most populous, with 2,623 and 1,855 residents, respectively. Shamrock Lakes, Ind., had 159 residents and Shamrock, Okla., 124. (Statistic for Mount Gay-Shamrock is from Census 2000; the other statistics are 2006 estimates.)
Sources: American FactFinder <http://factfinder.census.gov> and population estimates < http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/010315.html >

9 Number of places in the United States that share the name of Ireland’s capital, Dublin. Since Census 2000, Dublin, Calif., has surpassed Dublin, Ohio, as the most populous of these places (41,840 compared with 36,565, respectively, as of July 1, 2006).

If you’re still not into the spirit of St. Paddy’s Day, then you might consider paying a visit to Emerald Isle, N.C., with 3,716 residents.
Sources: American FactFinder <http://factfinder.census.gov> and population estimates <
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/010315.html >.

The Celebration

42.1 billion and 2.6 billion U.S. beef and cabbage production, respectively, in pounds, in 2006. Corned beef and cabbage is a traditional St. Patrick’s Day dish. The corned beef that celebrants dine on may very well have originated in Texas, which produced 6.8 billion pounds worth of beef, while the cabbage most likely came from California, which produced 607 million pounds worth, or New York (462 million pounds).

Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service <http://www.nass.usda.gov/index.asp>

$42 million Value of potted florist chrysanthemum sales at wholesale in 2006 for operations with $100,000 or more sales. Lime green chrysanthemums are often requested for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service <http://www.nass.usda.gov/index.asp>

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