by Guest Columnist Michael Loynd
March 9-15, 2012
The funny truth about St. Patrick’s Day
Every March 17th, I, like millions across the globe, love to get
their Irish on with a pint of green beer, corned beef and cabbage, and
dressing like oversized green leprechauns all in the name of St. Patrick. But the funny truth is that not one of
these things is really Irish. Even St.
Patrick was neither Irish, nor named Patrick, nor an officially canonized
saint. He was a Brit named Maewyn Succat,
whose color of choice was blue. So how
did the anniversary of his death turn into a sea of green and the wickedly fun celebration of
all things (sort of) Irish?
Parade
For almost fifteen centuries in Ireland, the missionary who
took the name Patrick was annually honored with a day of pub closings and a
mass. But across the pond, as early as
1737, Irish immigrants were marching through Boston to celebrate their
roots. When Ireland’s great potato famine
forced a quarter of its population to immigrate to America in the 1800’s, New
York’s booming Irish communities combined their neighborhood St. Patrick’s festivals
into what would become the world’s oldest civilian parade (attended today by three
million people).
Wearin’ o’ the Green
At the time of Patrick’s death in 461 A.D., wearing green
was bad luck. Green was believed the
favorite color of the fairies. And any superstitious
Irishman who dared wear it risked a fairy curse put on them. Patrick wore blue (Ireland’s national color
at the time). But his proclivity to use shamrocks
to explain the Holy Trinity prompted admirers to tuck a sprig of shamrock in
their hair or lapel to mark the anniversary of his death, deeming this holy
symbol the only safe “wearin’ o’ the green.”
Leave it to O’mericans to supersize this homage by pinning shamrocks all
over their clothes to loudly proclaim their Irishness, which over the years evolved
into wearing green ribbons, green scarves, green clothes, etc. (the fear of
Ireland’s fairies no match for O’mericans).
Leprechauns
Now as for traditional leprechauns, they wore red (red
boots, jacket, and shoes) and were cobblers with sour dispositions. The image as green affable little men sitting
on pots of gold appeared in 1903 in the popular stories of Darby O’Gill, written by a Chicago
author who took artistic license to re-envision the grouchy red fairies. And since St. Patrick’s parades were very O'merican, so too became the modern day leprechaun.
Corned Beef and
Cabbage
Then there is the tradition of eating corned beef and
cabbage—which is about as authentic an Irish dish as Spaghetti-o’s is
Italian. The commoner in Ireland could
not afford beef. They ate pork and
cabbage. Not until they immigrated to
America and found U.S. beef more affordable did they change diets.
Green Beer
As for green beer, no true Irishman would desecrate their sacred pint with dye. Not for St. Patrick, Jaysus, nor even God
Himself. This was pure O’merican, started
in 1914 by a social club in New York after a member discovered that a drop of “wash
blue” dye turned beer green. Thirty-eight years later it achieved pop status when Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, celebrated Green Beer Day.
And as for the Emerald Isle…
St. Patrick’s Day parades spread their merriment from Copenhagen, to Canada, to Australia, to Japan, to Dubai, to Moscow, to the Americas. And Ireland wasn't about to be left out of the fun celebrating their own heritage (authentic or not). So they imported the sea o’ green, corned beef, green leprechauns, and green beer in the last few decades, determined to show the rest of the world how to get their Irish on (even if it wasn't all that Irish). But then again, what's more Irish than having a few pints with a million of your closest friends? Have a wonderfully green St. Paddy’s Day!
To enjoy more fun Irishisms (like how the Irish invented Halloween), check out Michael Loynd's Amazon Humor Best Seller All Things Irish: A Novel, an Irish American News Featured Irish Book Club Selection that reviewers tout as Fried Green Tomatoes in an Irish shop. Only 99 cents on Kindle!
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