95 Fun Facts About St. Patrick's Day Trivia for Kids

On which date is St. Patrick's Day celebrated?

March 17 is the date Saint Patrick is traditionally said to have died; it joined the Catholic Church's official calendar only in the early 1600s, after the Irish friar Luke Wadding pressed for it.

Which two other saints share the title of patron saint of Ireland with Patrick?

Brigid and Columba join Patrick as Ireland's patron saints; Brigid is said to have founded a famous monastery at Kildare, and Columba, also called Colmcille, founded the monastery on Iona about 563.

Where was Saint Patrick actually born?

Britain was Patrick's birthplace, then under Roman rule; his father was a church deacon and his grandfather a priest, yet he wrote that as a boy he did not know the true God.

Who kidnapped the sixteen-year-old Patrick from his family's home and carried him off into slavery?

Irish pirates raided his family's estate when he was about sixteen and, by his own account, carried him across the sea along with thousands of other captives.

How did Patrick escape slavery in Ireland?

Fled to a ship: a voice in a dream told him one was ready, and by his own account the port lay some two hundred miles from where he was held.

Irish farmers planted potatoes after St. Patrick's Day expecting what to improve?

Tradition held that the weather would improve once St. Patrick's Day had passed, so Irish farmers waited until after the feast to plant their potatoes for the year.

According to legend, what did Saint Patrick use the shamrock to explain?

The Holy Trinity, one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is what legend says he taught with the plant; yet the story first appears in writing in 1726, some 1,200 years after Patrick lived.

Which creatures did Saint Patrick supposedly chase out of Ireland?

Snakes are what legend says Patrick banished from Ireland, but there were none to chase: the island has had no snakes since the last Ice Age, when rising water cut it off from Europe.

Which ancient Irish field sport is played with flat-ended wooden sticks and a small ball called a sliotar?

Hurling is played with a wooden stick called a hurley, and a player on the run may carry the ball balanced on its flat end, a move called a solo.

In Irish folklore, what is a leprechaun's trade when he isn't guarding his gold?

Shoemaker: in the old tales the leprechaun is a cranky, solitary fairy who mends the shoes of the other fairies, and he is usually pictured at work on a single shoe.

In Irish folklore, where does a leprechaun supposedly hide his pot of gold?

At the end of the rainbow is the perfect hiding place, because nobody can get there: a rainbow has no fixed spot and shifts with whoever is looking at it.

Which US city dyes its river bright green every year for St. Patrick's Day?

Chicago first dyed its river in 1962; the idea came from city workers who used green dye to trace illegal sewage leaks and saw how well it would suit the holiday.

St. Patrick's Day parades began on which continent, long before Ireland held any?

North America staged the earliest known parades: one in the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, Florida, in 1601, and another by Irish soldiers of the British army in New York in the 1760s.

What does the Irish greeting 'céad míle fáilte', seen on signs, mean?

A hundred thousand welcomes: céad is hundred, míle is thousand and fáilte is welcome, and Ireland's tourism board took that last word for its own name, Fáilte Ireland.

Which Caribbean island counts St. Patrick's Day as a public holiday?

Montserrat was settled by Irish Catholics in the 1600s and keeps St. Patrick's Day as a public holiday; the day also remembers a slave uprising planned for the feast in 1768.

Which famous building turned green in 2010 to help launch Tourism Ireland's Global Greening for St. Patrick's Day?

The Sydney Opera House and Auckland's Sky Tower were the first two sites lit for the Global Greening in 2010; since then more than 300 landmarks in some fifty countries have joined in.

The name Dublin comes from two Irish words that together mean what?

Black pool, from dubh, black, and linn, pool: the name described a dark tidal pool that once lay where the gardens of Dublin Castle are today.

What is Seachtain na Gaeilge, held in Ireland in the fortnight before St. Patrick's Day?

Seachtain na Gaeilge means Irish Language Week, yet the celebration has outgrown its name: it now runs for more than two weeks in the run-up to St. Patrick's Day.

Saint Patrick is said to be buried in a town that bears his name, in which Irish county?

Down is the county: tradition places his grave beside Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, though the inscribed granite slab that marks the spot was laid there only in 1900.

What is Ireland's official state emblem, shown on its coins, passports and coat of arms?

A harp is Ireland's state emblem, used on its coins, passports and official seals; a harp also stands for Ireland on the royal arms of the United Kingdom.

Botanically speaking, what is a four-leaf clover?

A rare mutation of ordinary clover produces the extra leaflet; scientists still debate how much is due to the plant's genes and how much to the conditions it grows in.

Roughly how many ordinary clovers would you have to search to find one four-leaf clover?

A survey of millions of clovers found one four-leaf clover for roughly every 5,000 ordinary ones, twice as common as the old saying of one in 10,000.

What is a person supposed to gain by kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland?

The gift of the gab means a way with words, and the stone's fame gave English the word 'blarney' for smooth, flattering talk.

The 'drowning the shamrock' custom ends St. Patrick's Day by putting a shamrock where?

In the bottom of a cup is where the shamrock goes: the cup is filled for a toast, and afterwards the shamrock is fished out and tossed over the shoulder.

Which river flows through the centre of Dublin?

The Liffey flows through the centre of Dublin, where the Ha'penny Bridge takes its name from the halfpenny toll that walkers once paid to cross it.

The Irish stepdancing show that became a worldwide hit in 1994 was called what?

Riverdance began as a seven-minute interval act at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, starring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, before growing into a full stage show.

Which Canadian province gives its government workers a holiday for St. Patrick's Day?

Newfoundland and Labrador keeps St. Patrick's Day as a provincial government holiday; Irish migrants settled the island in the 1700s, and about one in five residents claims Irish ancestry.

What did astronaut Chris Hadfield do for St. Patrick's Day 2013 aboard the ISS?

Chris Hadfield wore green and sang Danny Boy, recording the song in orbit 'for the Irish everywhere' while he was commander of the space station.

Which traditional Irish dish became corned beef in Irish-American kitchens?

Bacon and cabbage is the traditional Irish dinner of boiled pork with cabbage and potatoes; Irish immigrants in New York swapped the bacon for cheaper corned beef.

How long a lease did Arthur Guinness sign on his Dublin brewery in 1759?

9,000 years was the term Arthur Guinness signed for in 1759, at 45 pounds a year; the lease no longer applies, because the company later bought the land outright.

Which nickname for Ireland comes from its lush green landscape?

The Emerald Isle owes its name to its grass: abundant rain and a mild climate keep Ireland's grasslands lush.

How many leaves does a shamrock have?

A shamrock has three leaves, but botanists have never agreed which plant is the true shamrock: several different species are sold under the name.

What is a céilí, part of many St. Patrick's Day celebrations?

A céilí, pronounced roughly KAY-lee, is a traditional Irish music and dance gathering where set dances are called out and everyone joins in; the word originally meant a social visit.

St. Patrick's Day became an Irish public holiday in 1903 under a law passed in which city?

London: Ireland was then part of the United Kingdom, so the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903 went through Parliament at Westminster, introduced by the Irish MP James O'Mara.

The slogan 'Erin go Bragh', seen on St. Patrick's Day banners, means what?

Ireland forever is the usual translation of Erin go Bragh, an English spelling of the Irish Éirinn go Brách; the United Irishmen took up the phrase in the 1790s.

Saint Patrick is also a patron saint of which West African country?

Nigeria has Saint Patrick as a patron thanks to its Irish bishops and missionary priests; one Irish mission society set up to work there bears his name and was founded on his feast day in 1932.

Before the 1900s, what colour were leprechauns usually said to wear?

One 1831 description gives the little fellow a red square-cut coat laced with gold and a cocked hat; the all-green look came much later.

A leprechaun spinning a basketball on his finger is the logo of which NBA team?

The Boston Celtics' leprechaun is a nod to Boston's large Irish-American community; the logo was first drawn by Zang Auerbach, brother of the team's most famous coach.

Which breakfast cereal's mascot is a leprechaun created by General Mills?

Lucky Charms, launched by General Mills in 1964, has the leprechaun Lucky as its mascot, the character who guards the cereal's marshmallow charms from children in its adverts.

What did astronaut Catherine Coleman play aboard the space station on St. Patrick's Day 2011?

The hundred-year-old flute belonged to Matt Molloy of The Chieftains, and her weightless performance ended up on the band's album Voice of Ages.

Which US president was the first to be sent a box of shamrocks from Ireland, in 1952?

Harry S. Truman received the first box of shamrocks in 1952, sent by Ireland's ambassador John Hearne; the gift later grew into a yearly White House visit by the Irish Taoiseach.

Until the early 1900s, people in Ireland wore a St. Patrick's Day cross covered in ribbon but cut from what?

Paper was the base of the St. Patrick's Day cross: children pinned the ribbon-covered badge to the right shoulder, while the grown-ups wore a sprig of shamrock instead.

Which colour did the Order of St Patrick adopt in 1783, linking it to the saint for a time?

Blue was the Order of St Patrick's colour, but green is the one that stuck: the shamrocks and green ribbons people wore on the saint's day tied the holiday to green instead.

Legend says Patrick fasted on top of a mountain in County Mayo for how many days?

Forty days is the length of Patrick's legendary fast on Croagh Patrick; the seventh-century writer Tírechán likened it to the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai.

The Irish village of Dripsey once held a parade billed as the world's shortest, running between its two what?

Pubs: the route ran just 23.4 metres from one of Dripsey's two pubs to the other, and the tradition ended after five years when one of them closed.

What job did young Patrick do during his years as a slave in Ireland?

Patrick worked as a shepherd, minding flocks in the hills; he later wrote that those lonely years of slavery were when he turned to prayer and found his faith.

Patrick's two surviving pieces of writing are in which language?

Patrick's Confessio and his Letter to Coroticus are both written in Latin, the language of the church and of schooling in the Roman province where he grew up.

What did the dream letter called 'The Voice of the Irish' ask Patrick to do?

The letter begged Patrick to return and walk among them once more; he wrote in his Confessio that the dream persuaded him to go back to the island of his slavery.

According to legend, Patrick's first church in Ireland was held in what kind of building?

A barn given by the local chieftain Dichu served as Patrick's first church; the village on the spot is called Saul, from the Irish word for a barn.

Which Irish city has two cathedrals that are both named after Saint Patrick?

Armagh has a Church of Ireland and a Catholic cathedral, both dedicated to Saint Patrick; tradition says he founded his chief church there in 445, making it Ireland's ecclesiastical capital.

New York City's St. Patrick's Day parade marches up which famous street?

Fifth Avenue fills with some 150,000 marchers each year, and by tradition the parade is always led by the soldiers of New York's 69th Infantry Regiment.

In legend, what did Patrick do on the Hill of Slane that the High King had forbidden?

Lit a fire: the High King had banned every fire that night but his own on the nearby Hill of Tara, so Patrick's Easter fire was open defiance.

Which fast-food chain sells a minty green Shamrock Shake around St. Patrick's Day?

McDonald's began selling the Shamrock Shake more widely in 1970; four years later, money from its sales helped build the very first Ronald McDonald House, in Philadelphia.

On Reek Sunday, how do some pilgrims climb Ireland's holy mountain Croagh Patrick as a penance?

Barefoot is how some pilgrims make the stony climb each year on the last Sunday in July; the pilgrimage is thought to be older than Christianity, beginning as a harvest rite.

On Croagh Patrick, legend says Patrick rang his bell to drive away what?

A flock of black birds, said to be demons, mobbed Patrick on the peak; he rang his bell until they fled into a hollow known as Lugnademon, the hollow of the demons.

Slemish, the hill where the enslaved Patrick reputedly worked, is the remains of what?

Volcano: Slemish is the plug of an extinct one, a core of hard rock left standing after the softer material around it wore away.

Medieval pilgrims believed a cave on Station Island in Donegal was the entrance to what?

The cave on Station Island was believed to be the entrance to Purgatory, shown to Saint Patrick; the site, called St Patrick's Purgatory, was the only Irish place marked on Martin Behaim's 1492 globe.

What does seamróg, the Irish word behind 'shamrock', mean?

Young clover, or little clover: seamróg is seamair, the Irish for clover, with an ending that makes a smaller version of a thing; by custom a sprig is pinned to the coat on the saint's day.

Which airline uses a shamrock logo and the radio call sign 'SHAMROCK'?

Aer Lingus, Ireland's flag carrier founded in 1936, paints a shamrock on every tail fin, and its pilots identify each flight to air traffic control as 'Shamrock' plus the flight number.

English writers in the 1500s claimed that the Irish did what with shamrocks?

Ate them, the writers said; they may have confused seamróg with seamsóg, the Irish name for wood sorrel, a sour-leaved plant that people really did eat.

The record-setting clover found in Japan in 2023 had how many leaflets?

63 leaflets is the record, found in 2023 by Yoshiharu Watanabe, who had been growing clovers in his garden since 2012; it beat a 56-leaf clover found in Japan in 2009.

Which rocket company puts a four-leaf clover on every mission patch?

SpaceX has put a clover on its patches ever since its Falcon 1 rocket first reached orbit in 2008, on a fourth attempt that followed a string of failed launches.

Which youth group's emblem is a green four-leaf clover with a white letter on each leaf?

4-H's clover has an H on each leaf for head, heart, hands and health, though in the club's early days the fourth H stood for hustle.

In one tradition, a four-leaf clover's leaves stand for hope, faith, love and what?

The fourth leaf stands for luck, after hope, faith and love; another old belief said a four-leaf clover let its finder see fairies.

In the oldest leprechaun story, tiny water sprites try to drag the sleeping King Fergus where?

Tiny lúchorpáin try to drag the sleeping King Fergus mac Léti into the sea; he seizes them and wins the power to travel under water, in the earliest leprechaun tale, from the 700s.

Which American university's 'Fighting Irish' teams have a leprechaun mascot?

Notre Dame made the leprechaun its official mascot only in 1965; before that the teams were represented by a line of Irish terrier dogs, most of them named Clashmore Mike.

Which 1959 Disney film features a leprechaun king who grants three wishes?

Darby O'Gill and the Little People has King Brian of the leprechauns grant Darby his wishes; its young romantic lead, Sean Connery, became James Bond in 1962.

What is the white stripe in the middle of Ireland's flag meant to stand for?

Peace between green and orange, Ireland's Catholic and Protestant traditions, is the white stripe's meaning; unveiling the flag in 1848, Thomas Francis Meagher called it a lasting truce between the two.

Which African country's flag looks like Ireland's flipped back to front?

Ivory Coast's flag runs orange, white and green, Ireland's colours in reverse; when the Ivorian sprinter Murielle Ahouré won a world indoor title in 2018 with no flag to hand, Irish fans threw her theirs and she flipped it round.

Which royal presented shamrocks to the Irish Guards on St. Patrick's Day 2012?

Princess Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, first presented the shamrock to the Irish Guards in 2012, and ten years later she became the regiment's colonel.

Which dog breed is the official mascot of the Irish Guards regiment?

The Irish Wolfhound, the tallest of all dog breeds, has been the Irish Guards' mascot since 1902; in 391 the Roman consul Symmachus wrote of seven Irish hounds that all Rome viewed with wonder.

On a Claddagh ring, the heart means love, the hands friendship, and the crown what?

The crown stands for loyalty; legend credits the design to Richard Joyce, a silversmith who learned the craft while enslaved in Algiers in the 1600s and made the ring for his sweetheart.

The Claddagh ring takes its name from a fishing village in which Irish county?

The Claddagh is an old fishing village just outside the walls of Galway city, where the rings were made from about 1700; the name 'Claddagh ring' only caught on in the 1830s.

What must visitors do to kiss the Blarney Stone?

Visitors lie on their backs and lean backwards over a ledge, gripping iron rails, to kiss the stone; before the rails were added, helpers held kissers by the ankles over the drop.

Blarney Castle, home of the famous stone, is just outside which Irish city?

Blarney Castle stands about 8 kilometres north-west of Cork city; a 2014 University of Glasgow study found the stone is local limestone, not a piece of Scotland's Stone of Scone.

In competitive Irish stepdancing, where must dancers keep their arms?

At their sides, with the upper body held still, is the rule in competition; the big stage shows of the 1990s broke with that discipline and let the arms move.

What are the soft lace-up shoes worn by girls in Irish dancing called?

Ghillies are the soft black leather lace-up shoes worn by girls in Irish dancing; boys wear 'reel shoes' with a hard heel instead, giving their soft-shoe steps audible clicks.

An Irish dancing competition is called a feis, an Irish word meaning what?

Feis means festival; in ancient Ireland the great assemblies of that name mixed music, dancing and sport with the proclaiming of new laws.

Why was the tin whistle nicknamed after a small coin in Victorian times?

Penny whistle, because it cost one penny to buy: Robert Clarke's factory-made tin whistles, produced in Manchester from the 1840s, were cheap enough for anyone.

The bodhrán, the Irish frame drum, is traditionally covered with the skin of which animal?

A bodhrán is traditionally covered with goat skin; the player presses a hand against the inside of the skin to change the pitch while striking the other side with a stick called a tipper.

How does a player fill the bag of Ireland's uilleann pipes with air?

With bellows worked by the arm: the piper straps a small bellows under one elbow and pumps, so no breath is needed, and uilleann is the Irish for 'of the elbow'.

The words to 'Danny Boy' were written in 1910 by a lawyer from which country?

Frederic Weatherly was a lawyer from Somerset, in England; he wrote the words in 1910 and fitted them to the Irish tune 'Londonderry Air' in 1913.

A shillelagh, the knobbly Irish walking stick, is typically cut from which wood?

A shillelagh is typically cut from blackthorn, whose dense wood and root knob make a natural club; the sticks were often cured up a chimney for months before being polished.

Irish soda bread rises using baking soda instead of which usual ingredient?

Soda bread rises without yeast because the acid in buttermilk reacts with the baking soda; add raisins and the loaf goes by the nickname spotted dog.

Which US city also marks St. Patrick's Day as Evacuation Day, when British troops sailed away in 1776?

Boston's Evacuation Day recalls 1776, when George Washington's cannon on Dorchester Heights forced the British garrison to sail away after a siege of nearly a year.

Which First Lady had the White House fountains dyed green in 2009?

Michelle Obama came up with the idea for St. Patrick's Day 2009, the Obamas' first in the White House, and dyeing the fountains has been a yearly custom ever since.

In a playful St. Patrick's Day custom, what does anyone caught without green clothes get?

A pinch is the playful penalty for being caught without green, so on the saint's day Irish and non-Irish alike make sure to wear at least a little of the colour.

Saint Patrick's red X-shaped cross was combined with two others to form which flag?

The Union Jack combines Saint Patrick's red saltire with the crosses of Saint George and Saint Andrew; the red diagonals were added in 1801 when Ireland joined the United Kingdom.

Which famous writer was dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin?

Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver's Travels, was dean from 1713 until he died in 1745; he left his fortune to found a Dublin hospital for the mentally ill, also named after St Patrick.

Which Irish county shares its name with a five-line comic poem?

Limerick is both an Irish county and the name of the five-line joke poem; nobody is sure of the link, though one story traces it to a party chorus, 'Will you come up to Limerick?'

Which of Ireland's four historic provinces lies in the north?

Ulster is the northern province; six of its nine counties form Northern Ireland, while Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan are in the Republic.

What is the longest river in Ireland?

The Shannon is Ireland's longest river, running about 360 kilometres from the Shannon Pot in County Cavan; it divides the west of the island from the east.

What is the highest mountain in Ireland?

Carrauntoohil, in County Kerry, tops out just under 1,040 metres, which makes it Ireland's highest peak but leaves it lower than Snowdon in Wales and Ben Nevis in Scotland.

Which sport's All-Ireland final fills Dublin's Croke Park with more than 80,000 fans?

Gaelic football's All-Ireland final packs more than 80,000 people into Croke Park, yet even the sport's biggest stars are amateurs who are not paid to play.

Which NHL team was called the St. Patricks and wore green from 1919 to 1927?

The Toronto Maple Leafs played as the Toronto St. Patricks in green from 1919 to 1927, until new owner Conn Smythe renamed them the Maple Leafs and dropped the green.