How many really knows who St. Patrick really is? How many knows the reasons why we celebrate St. Patrick Day and who it’s honor? Like a lot of holidays, St. Patrick Day got lost and forgotten about. Holidays like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, etc. According to the world’s standard, St. Patrick Day is just another day to party for no real reason at all. So in this blog, I will give you a little history of who St. Patrick is; so you will know why we honor him on March 17. I will even give you some of the traditions behind St. Patrick Day and see if it’s relevant to who St. Patrick is.

St. Patrick is the primary patron saint of Ireland and a revered Christian missionary known as the Apostle of Ireland. Even though he was born in Britain, he was enslaved in Ireland as a teenager before escaping, later to return as a bishop to convert the Irish to Christianity, establishing churches and founding monasteries.

Some of the key facts about St. Patrick are: he was born into a Christian family in Roman Britain, the late 4th century. He was kidnapped at the age of 16 by Irish raiders and spent 6 years in slavery in Ireland, where his faith deepened.

For those who didn’t know, the English and the Irish had an ongoing feud between the 2 countries. For those who have Irish and English in their DNA, you can say theirs a inner feud going on inside of you, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

After escaping Ireland, St. Patrick experienced a vision instructing him to return to Ireland as a missionary. He was ordained a bishop and returned around 432 AD, spending decades converting pagans, baptizing thousands, and ordaining priests.

You may wondered why go back to where you escaped from? Usually people want to forget about the past. When God calls you to do something, you better obey. Don’t be like Jonah! When God asked Jonah to go to Nineveh, he disobey God and went the other way, only to be swallow up by a whale. Eventually, Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh.

St. Patrick was Romano-British, not Irish, but is considered the foundational figure in converting Ireland to Christianity. His work brought Christianity to the Irish people, transforming the nation’s spiritual landscape and establishing a legacy celebrated globally on St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick is credited with using the 3-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity(3-person in 1 God) Another popular, likely mythical story is that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland into the sea.

First of all, I love having a shamrock shake from McDonald’s every year around St. Patrick Day, that’s part of my tradition. Besides, McDonald’s make the best Shamrock shake.

Now the shamrock is a 3-leaf clover representing Ireland, derived from the Gaelic seamrog (little clover).

Whereas the 4-leaf clover is a rare mutation of the common 3-leaf clover, with 4 heart-shaped leaflets instead of 3. It’s widely considered a symbol of good luck and positivity. They say when you find a 4-leaf clover it will bring you luck. The Irish is known to believe in luck. Do you feel lucky?

Another tradition around St. Patrick’s Day is eating corn beef and cabbage. Corn beef and cabbage is considered an Irish-American dish, not a traditional dish from Ireland. While popular on St. Patrick’s Day in the US, Irish immigrants in the 19th century substituted cheaper corn beef from Jewish butchers for their traditional, more expensive bacon and cabbage. The traditional Irish meal is actually boiled bacon(pork) and cabbage, not corn beef.

When we would make corn beef and cabbage, we also would add potatoes and carrots as well to the dish. You can cook it together in a crock pot like stew or broil the corn beef separate from the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots. What is left over, you can make Reuben sandwich.

Even though the Reuben sandwich isn’t traditionally Irish, it originated from New York City Jewish or German-Jewish deli, it was pick up by the Irish.

Another tradition around St. Patrick’s Day is the idea of having “Green” beer. Thar’s not a tradition for me; even though I like beer like anybody else. I mean, “Hell Yeah, I like beer.” I’m just not into green beer. Sure, it’s just green dye in the beer.

The tradition of green beer for St. Patrick’s Day originated in the United States, likely in 1914 by Dr. Thomas Hayes Curtin in New York City. He introduced the drink by adding a drop of “wash blue” to beer.

I’ll stick to my shamrock shake or Irish Mocha instead of green beer, thank you, please.

Have you ever been to Ireland?

The country of Ireland is off the coast of England. It’s a beautiful country. I would love to go to Ireland when I retire to check out the beauty.

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17th, which marks the anniversary of St. Patrick’s death. We just celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this past week. Now you know why we honor St. Patrick on March 17. It’s good to remember why we celebrate certain holiday instead for just a reason to party and drink.

Another tradition was wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. When I was in school, if you didn’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, you were pinched. Now days, if you pinch someone, you could get charge with sexual harassment.

I hope that you had wonderful St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. I hope you celebrated by giving honor to the man we celebrate the day for. I hope you enjoyed your corn beef and cabbage and to those who drinks “green” beer enjoyed that too. May the luck of the Irish prosper you this year.