Fun Facts About St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on by amreade

Having learned in the last few years that I am of Irish extraction, I’ve found a renewed interest in St. Patrick’s Day. For this week’s blog post I did a little digging and discovered some things about St. Patrick’s Day that I hadn’t known.

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The real Saint Patrick wasn’t Irish! He was British, born to an aristocratic family around the year 390. He didn’t even practice Christianity until, having been kidnapped and sent to Ireland to live as a shepherd, he experienced a religious conversion, escaped to return to Britain, and was told in a dream to return to Ireland.

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The real Saint Patrick wasn’t even a saint! He was never canonized by a Pope.

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It is said that St. Patrick taught people about the Holy Trinity by using the three leaves of the common clover (or shamrock) to represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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Your odds of finding a four-leaf clover are 1 in 10,000.

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The first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the United States was held in Boston in 1737.

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On St. Patrick’s Day, there are over 13 million pints of Guinness sold around the world. Another fun fact: I don’t like Guinness.

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There are 34.7 million Irish-Americans. This is more than seven times the population of Ireland.

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The world’s shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade is held in the Irish village of Dripsey. It is only 100 yards long and stretches between the village’s two pubs.

Not Dripsey.

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Legend has it that wearing green makes a person invisible to leprechauns.

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There are no snakes slithering through the countryside of Ireland and there never were. When we hear that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, perhaps this is what is meant:

From Shoeboxblog.com

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! How do you celebrate?

Until next time,

Amy

Published by amreade

23 thoughts on “Fun Facts About St. Patrick’s Day”

  2. St. Patrick’s Day has never been a big deal to me, though we are in part Irish ourselves. I guess I’ve never lived anywhere that celebrated big . . .and I’m not a drinker, even when the beer is green 🙂 @samanthabwriter from
    Balancing Act

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    1. I used to live in Manhattan, where St. Patrick’s Day is huge. I never really got into it until I had kids, then we did things to make it fun every year. And I don’t like beer!

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    1. My pleasure, Pat. This was a fun post to research. I’m glad you mentioned dinner–my corned beef goes in the crock pot in 40 minutes! Have a great day.

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  9. It is a huge celebration here in our part of Spain as there are many Irish folks living here and the Spanish people love to celebrate anything!! Unfortunately due to the coronavirus, it was cancelled this year, much to the disappointment of many of us. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all. Everyone is Irish on March 17th!!

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    1. St. Patrick’s Day celebrations have largely been cancelled in this country, too, and people everywhere are disappointed because it is a fun day to celebrate. I’ve heard on the BBC how many businesses and services in Spain have been affected by the virus, so I hope you stay safe and well. We should all have a world-wide celebration when the virus is defeated!

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