95 Fun Facts About St Pattys Day

On what date is St. Patrick's Day traditionally celebrated each year?

March 17: the feast entered the Catholic Church's universal calendar in the early 1600s, and Irish communities abroad had kept the date as a national day since the ninth century.

Which country is credited as the origin of St. Patrick's Day as a religious feast day?

Ireland: the Irish church kept 17 March as Patrick's feast from around the ninth or tenth century, long before the day became a secular celebration abroad.

St Patrick's Day always falls inside which Christian season of fasting?

Lent: Ash Wednesday is never later than 10 March and Easter never earlier than 22 March, so 17 March always lands inside the fast, and the feast day's dispensation let people eat and drink.

According to legend, what creatures did St. Patrick famously banish from Ireland?

Snakes: Ireland never had any, as the Roman writer Solinus noted in the third century; the earliest text crediting Patrick with banishing them dates only from the late twelfth century.

What color was originally associated with St. Patrick before green became popular?

Blue: the Anglo-Irish Order of St Patrick, founded in 1783, took sky blue as its colour, while the United Irishmen adopted green in the 1790s and green won out.

Which U.S. city staged the first recorded St. Patrick's Day parade, back in 1601?

St. Augustine: the 1601 parade in Spanish Florida, organised by the colony's Irish vicar Ricardo Artur, predates Boston's 1737 celebration and New York's first parade by more than a century.

Which little bearded man of Irish folklore hides his gold at the end of a rainbow?

Leprechaun: the solitary shoemaker fairy of Irish folklore is said to keep a crock of gold at the rainbow's end and to grant three wishes to anyone who catches him.

What dish, often served with cabbage, is popular on St. Patrick's Day in the United States?

Corned beef: it is not a traditional Irish dish, since beef was long too dear in Ireland and bacon was the everyday meat; Irish-Americans paired cheap corned beef with cabbage.

The Irish word 'seamróg', from which 'shamrock' derives, literally means what?

Young clover is all it means, yet Elizabethan English writers thought the Irish ate it, possibly confusing seamróg with seamsóg, the word for wood sorrel.

Which major US city has dyed its river green for St. Patrick's Day since 1962?

Chicago got the idea from sewer workers, who were using green dye to trace discharges into the river in 1962 and realised it could turn the whole thing green for the holiday.

Besides Ireland, on which Caribbean island is St. Patrick's Day a public holiday?

Montserrat: settled by Irish Catholics in the 1600s, the island keeps 17 March as a public holiday that also commemorates a failed slave uprising against its Irish planters.

In Irish traditional music, the violin is almost always called by what name?

Fiddle: the instrument is physically the same as a classical violin, but Irish traditional players call it a fiddle and favour dance rhythms, rolls and cuts over sustained vibrato.

Patrick's own account of his life, one of his two surviving writings, has what Latin title?

Confessio: written in plain Latin late in his life, it defends his Irish mission against critics back in Britain and tells of his escape by ship after a voice told him it was ready.

What does the traditional Irish phrase 'Erin go Bragh' mean?

Ireland forever: it anglicises the Irish 'Éirinn go Brách', literally 'Ireland until the end of time', a slogan of Irish nationalism since the late 1700s.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in March because it is believed to be the anniversary of what event?

March 17th is observed as St. Patrick's Day because it is the traditional anniversary of his death.

Legend says St. Patrick used the three leaves of a shamrock to explain which Christian doctrine to the Irish?

The Holy Trinity story is first written down in 1726, yet coins minted in the 1680s already show Patrick clutching a shamrock.

New York City's St Patrick's Day parade traces its history to a first observance held in which year?

1762: the first observance was a gathering at the home of John Marshall, an Irish Protestant; a parade by Irish soldiers serving in the British Army followed in 1766.

What is the capital city of the Republic of Ireland?

Dublin is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, a popular destination for St. Patrick's Day festivities.

Guinness, the drink most tied to St. Patrick's Day, is which style of beer?

Stout: Guinness, the dry stout brewed at Dublin's St James's Gate since 1759, is the beer most associated with the holiday, and brewers plan months ahead for the spike in demand.

In Irish traditional music, a jig is written in which time signature?

6/8: the standard double jig runs in 6/8, two groups of three quavers to the bar, while the rarer slip jig stretches to 9/8.

What traditional Irish ring shows two hands holding a crowned heart?

The Claddagh ring is a traditional Irish ring where two hands clasp a heart, often topped with a crown, representing love, loyalty, and friendship.

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

Toronto Maple Leafs: the club played in green as the Toronto St. Patricks from 1919 until Conn Smythe's group bought it in 1927 and renamed it the Maple Leafs.

Which New York National Guard regiment traditionally leads the city's St Patrick's Day parade?

69th Infantry Regiment: the 'Fighting 69th', a New York National Guard unit raised among the city's Irish in 1849, has marched at the head of the Fifth Avenue parade since 1851.

What is the Irish name for St. Patrick's Day?

Lá Fhéile Pádraig translates literally as 'the Day of the Festival of Patrick', which is why the holiday is also called the Feast of Saint Patrick.

Approximately when did St. Patrick die?

The annals disagree, recording a "repose of Patrick" in 461 or 462 and another death in 492 or 493; tradition settled on 461 and holds that he was buried at Downpatrick.

Irish soda bread rises because bicarbonate of soda reacts with the acid in which ingredient?

Buttermilk: its lactic acid reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to release carbon dioxide at once, so bakers mix briefly and never knead; soft Irish wheat flour suits the loaf.

Which landmark was among the first two lit green for Tourism Ireland's 'Global Greening' in 2010?

Sydney Opera House: it and Auckland's Sky Tower were the first two landmarks lit for Tourism Ireland's Global Greening in 2010, a campaign that later spread to hundreds of sites worldwide.

Which stiff-bodied, fast-footed style of Irish dance went global after a 1994 Eurovision interval act?

Stepdance: Riverdance, the seven-minute interval act at the 1994 Eurovision in Dublin, showed the rigid upper body and rapid footwork of Irish stepdance to an estimated 300 million viewers.

Which Irish writer produced the best-known version of 'The Wearing of the Green' in 1864?

Dion Boucicault: he rewrote the anonymous 1798 street ballad for his 1864 play Arrah-na-Pogue, producing the version that begins 'O Paddy dear, and did ye hear'.

Whom does the orange stripe of the Irish flag stand for?

Green stands for the Catholic tradition, orange for the Protestant one, and the white between them for the hoped-for peace between the two.

Kissing which Irish stone, set into a castle tower in 1446, is said to bestow the 'gift of the gab'?

The Blarney Stone was set into a tower of Blarney Castle in 1446, and legend says kissing it endows great eloquence or a skill at flattery.

On the ISS in 2011, Catherine Coleman played a flute and tin whistle borrowed from which Irish band?

The recording later appeared as 'The Chieftains in Orbit' on the band's 2012 album Voice of Ages.

Which free-reed instrument with bellows and buttons on both ends is a staple of Irish music sessions?

The Anglo concertina survived the instrument's early-20th-century decline largely because Irish traditional players kept it going.

Which Irish county hosted Dripsey's 23.4-metre, pub-to-pub St Patrick's Day parade?

Cork: Dripsey, a village near Cork city, held its 23.4-metre parade between two neighbouring pubs from 1999 until one of them closed, ending the event.

What is the name of the ancient Celtic writing system sometimes seen in Irish art and monuments?

Ogham is an ancient medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, often found carved on stone monuments.

The uilleann pipes, Ireland's national bagpipe, take their name from the Irish word for which body part?

Elbow: 'uilleann' comes from the Irish 'uille', elbow, because the bag is filled by a bellows worked under the player's arm rather than by blowing, which lets some pipers sing while playing.

In Irish folklore, what is the name for a mermaid or merman, anglicised from the Irish word murúch?

Merrow: Thomas Crofton Croker and W. B. Yeats both collected merrow tales; Croker derived the word from muir (sea) and oigh (maid), though murúch can also mean a sea monster.

Which famous early medieval illuminated manuscript is housed at Trinity College Dublin?

The Book of Kells is a richly decorated manuscript Gospel book, created by Celtic monks around 800 AD, and is a major tourist attraction in Dublin.

Which traditional Irish sport, similar to field hockey, is played with a sliotar?

Hurling: an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, it uses a small ball called a sliotar that a good strike can send over 150 km/h; the women's version is called camogie.

The Irish drinking toast 'Sláinte!' literally means what?

Health: 'sláinte' is simply the Irish noun for health, so the toast wishes it on the company; the customary reply is 'sláinte agatsa', 'health to you too'.

What legendary Irish giant is sometimes depicted as a builder of causeways?

Finn MacCool: legend has him build the Giant's Causeway to reach Scotland, then hide from the far larger giant Benandonner disguised by his wife as a baby; the terrified Scot tore up the causeway fleeing home.

In Irish history, what happened in 1798?

The rising was organised by the Society of United Irishmen, who had adopted green as their colour in the 1790s, and it is nicknamed 'The Turn Out' in Ulster Scots.

What type of cross, often found in Ireland, features a ring around the intersection of the arms?

The Celtic Cross is a distinctive Christian symbol originating in Ireland and Great Britain, characterized by a cross with a circle surrounding the intersection of the arms.

Which Irish song about a betrayed highwayman was a 1973 hit for Thin Lizzy and later covered by Metallica?

'Whiskey in the Jar': The Dubliners made it a signature song in the 1960s, and its plot resembles a broadside ballad about the real highwayman Patrick Fleming, executed in 1650.

Which pope sent Palladius in 431 as first bishop 'to the Irish believing in Christ'?

Celestine I: Prosper of Aquitaine's chronicle records that Celestine ordained Palladius in 431, implying Ireland had Christians before Patrick; some historians think parts of the two men's stories were later merged.

What is the name for the traditional Irish drum, played with a stick called a 'tipper'?

The bodhrán is a traditional Irish frame drum, played with a small wooden stick called a 'tipper' or 'beater'.

Which Irish county is known as the 'Garden of Ireland'?

Wicklow: its mountains, glens and great estates such as Powerscourt earned it the 'Garden of Ireland' nickname; the county's name comes from the Old Norse Víkingaló, 'Vikings' Meadow'.

Patrick writes that he spent how many years enslaved in Ireland before escaping?

He says a voice told him his ship was ready, and he walked about 200 Roman miles to reach it. The six-year span echoes the release of a Hebrew slave in Exodus, which some scholars think is deliberate.

As a slave in Ireland, the teenage Patrick worked as what?

A herder: Patrick says he tended flocks daily; he never names the place, but a later dream about the people near 'the wood of Foclut' by the western sea suggests Connacht, around Killala Bay.

Who are Ireland's other two patron saints alongside Patrick?

Brigid and Columba: legend has all three buried together at Down Cathedral, though that rests on a 12th-century 'discovery' by the Norman knight John de Courcy, who claimed to find the relics in 1185.

Besides Ireland, Patrick is the patron saint of which African country?

Irish missionaries were a major presence in Nigeria in the 20th century, and Guinness Foreign Extra Stout brewed there uses a proportion of sorghum.

Patrick's surviving letter excommunicates the soldiers of which British king?

The soldiers had killed and enslaved some of his new converts. Coroticus is usually identified with Ceretic of Alt Clut, the kingdom around Dumbarton Rock.

Muirchú says Patrick lit a defiant Easter fire, visible from Tara, on which hill?

Slane: Muirchú has Patrick light his Easter fire on the Hill of Slane, about 16 km from Tara, defying the king's ban on any other blaze during his festival; nobody could put it out.

Which Georgia city held its first St. Patrick's Day parade in 1824?

Savannah: the city's Hibernian Society organised its first St. Patrick's Day parade in 1824, and the event grew into one of the largest in the United States.

Tradition says Patrick founded his main church in 445 at which site with two cathedrals?

Armagh: both the Catholic and Church of Ireland cathedrals in Armagh are named for Patrick, and the city is the seat of both primates of all Ireland.

Which 12th-century writer first recorded Patrick driving the serpents into the sea?

Jocelyn of Furness: his Life of Patrick, written around 1185, is the earliest text with the snake story; Ireland never had snakes after the Ice Age, as Solinus noted in the third century.

On which mountain is the saint said to have fasted for forty days?

Croagh Patrick: locals call the 764-metre Mayo peak 'the Reek', and thousands climb it on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday in July, a pilgrimage dating back at least to the Middle Ages.

The Old Irish protective prayer 'Faeth Fiada' is known in English as Saint Patrick's what?

Breastplate: the Lorica, or St Patrick's Breastplate, was read by medieval editors as 'Deer's Cry', from a tale of Patrick's monks appearing to an ambush as deer; the phrase more likely means a mist of concealment.

After 1801 the red saltire of St Patrick was combined with two other crosses to form what?

The Union Jack: the Act of Union added St Patrick's red saltire to the crosses of St George and St Andrew in 1801; the saltire's link to Patrick only dates from the Order of St Patrick in 1783.

Which king created the Order of St Patrick in 1783?

George III: he founded the Order of St Patrick in 1783 to reward support in the Irish Parliament; regular appointments ended in 1922, and the last surviving knight, the Duke of Gloucester, died in 1974.

The Order of St Patrick's 'Irish Crown Jewels' were stolen in which year?

1907: the star and badge of rubies, emeralds and Brazilian diamonds vanished from Dublin Castle in July 1907 along with the collars of five knights, and none of the pieces was ever recovered.

A 1795 poem by which United Irishmen co-founder first called Ireland 'the Emerald Isle'?

William Drennan: his 1795 poem 'When Erin First Rose' coined 'the Emerald Isle'; the United Irishmen he helped found had adopted green, and 'The Wearing of the Green' tells of their persecution for it.

In 1922 the new Irish Free State ordered all of what to be painted green?

Post boxes: the Free State repainted the red Victorian and Edwardian pillar boxes green in 1922, leaving the royal ciphers cast in the iron; a green Irish passport followed in 1924.

Saint Patrick's Day became an official public holiday in Ireland in which year?

1903: the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, introduced at Westminster by James O'Mara of the Irish Parliamentary Party, made the day a public holiday two decades before independence.

Which city held Ireland's first St Patrick's Day parade, during Irish Language Week?

Waterford: the 1903 procession, part of Irish Language Week, was held on Sunday 15 March and ended in the People's Park with the Mayor addressing the crowd.

From 1927 to 1961, what did the Irish Free State ban on St Patrick's Day?

Selling alcohol: the Intoxicating Liquor Act 1927 kept pubs shut on 17 March until the rule was lifted in 1961; it never applied in Northern Ireland.

The capital's first official, state-sponsored St Patrick's Day parade took place in which year?

1931: the first state-sponsored Dublin parade was held that year; before it the state's only observance was a military procession and an Irish-language mass.

In 2001 Ireland postponed its celebrations to May because of which outbreak?

Foot-and-mouth disease: the 2001 outbreak in Britain and Ireland led the government to push the Dublin festival back to May; the 2020 and 2021 festivals were later cancelled for COVID-19.

The first government-backed St Patrick's Festival was held in Ireland's capital in which year?

1996: the first St Patrick's Festival ran for a single day that March, grew to three days in 1997 and five by 2006; the 2009 parade drew around 675,000 spectators.

From 2006 to 2012, what was the centrepiece of the St Patrick's Festival in Ireland's capital?

The festival was set up in the mid-1990s to show off Ireland as 'a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal'.

In 1952 the Irish ambassador mailed a box of shamrocks to which US president, starting a custom?

Harry S. Truman: Ambassador John Hearne sent the box in 1952; the in-person White House handover only became an annual fixture after Albert Reynolds met Bill Clinton in 1994.

Who began presenting the Irish Guards with their St Patrick's Day shamrock in 2012?

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge: she took over the presentation in 2012, and fresh sprigs are flown in from Ireland wherever the regiment is stationed; Prince William stood in for her in 2016.

Which royal began the tradition of presenting shamrock to the Irish Guards in 1901?

Queen Alexandra: she began the custom in 1901, a year after Queen Victoria raised the Irish Guards in 1900 to honour Irish soldiers' service in the Boer War.

Which English city's St Patrick's Day parade is billed as the world's third biggest, after Dublin and New York?

Birmingham's organisers call it the third biggest parade in the world after Dublin and New York; Liverpool, with the highest share of Irish-descended residents of any English city, celebrates too.

In 2008, green dye went into the fountains of which London landmark?

Trafalgar Square: its fountains ran green in 2008, and the square is the usual end point of London's St Patrick's Day parade, held on a weekend around the 17th since 2002.

Which denomination added Patrick's feast to its liturgical calendar in 2017?

Russian Orthodox Church: its Holy Synod added Patrick and other pre-Schism Western saints to the calendar in March 2017, keeping his feast on 17 March Old Style, which falls on 30 March New Style.

Which Canadian city's St Patrick's Day parade was first held in 1824?

Montreal: the parade began in 1824, and the city flag carries a shamrock in its lower-right quadrant for its Irish founders, alongside a fleur-de-lis, a rose and a thistle.

In which Canadian province is the day a holiday for provincial government employees?

Newfoundland is often called the most Irish place outside Ireland, with about a fifth of its population of Irish descent.

The Caribbean's 'Emerald Isle' also marks 17 March for a failed slave uprising in which year?

1768: the plot by enslaved Africans to rise on 17 March 1768, while the Irish planters celebrated, was betrayed and its leaders executed; the island had been settled from St Kitts in 1632.

Evacuation Day, a 17 March holiday in Suffolk County, is observed in which US state?

Massachusetts: Evacuation Day marks the British leaving Boston on 17 March 1776 after Washington fortified Dorchester Heights, and Boston's Irish population helped make the date an official holiday.

Which local trade union has sponsored the Windy City's green river dyeing since 1962?

Plumbers: Journeymen Plumbers Local 130 has run the dyeing since 1962, replacing the original fluorescein, ruled out on environmental grounds, with a vegetable-based dye whose formula the union keeps secret.

Who had the White House fountains dyed green for St Patrick's Day in 2009?

A Chicago native, she borrowed the idea from her hometown's river. It was her first St Patrick's Day in the White House.

McDonald's sells which green, mint-flavoured milkshake for the season?

Shamrock Shake: sales of the shake in 1974 helped fund the first Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia; a 1980 spin-off, the Shamrock Sundae, lasted just one year.

McDonald's green seasonal shake was first made in 1967 by an operator from which state?

Connecticut: Hal Rosen, a franchisee in Enfield, Connecticut, made the original in 1967 as a lemon-lime sherbet shake; by 1973 it was green vanilla, and mint came later, pushed by Grimace's uncle, Uncle O'Grimacey.

Which fictional saint do Finnish Americans celebrate on 16 March, the day before Patrick's feast?

Urho: St. Urho was invented in Minnesota in 1956 and supposedly drove the grasshoppers out of Finland; his colours are royal purple and Nile green, and Menahga has a statue of him.

Judy Garland sang 'It's a Great Day for the Irish' in which 1940 MGM film?

Little Nellie Kelly: the number recreates New York's Fifth Avenue parade on the MGM backlot, and the film contains Garland's only on-screen death scene, as the mother Nellie.

Which song did Chris Hadfield record himself singing aboard the ISS for 17 March 2013?

Danny Boy: Hadfield also posted photos of Ireland from orbit and of himself in green; the song's lyrics were written in 1910 by Frederic Weatherly, an English lawyer, and set to the Londonderry Air in 1913.

Irish coffee is credited to chef Joe Sheridan at which flying-boat terminal in the 1940s?

Foynes: Sheridan created the drink at the Foynes flying-boat terminal in County Limerick in the 1940s; travel writer Stanton Delaplane then helped San Francisco's Buena Vista Cafe serve it from 10 November 1952.

Arthur Guinness's 1759 lease on the St James's Gate brewery ran for how many years?

The rent was £45 a year. He only started selling porter in 1778, and the word 'stout' did not appear on a Guinness beer until the 1840s.

Which Franciscan scholar got the feast onto the Catholic liturgical calendar in the early 1600s?

Wadding sat on the commission reforming the Breviary. Irish communities in Europe had been keeping the day as a national day since the ninth century.

Before the 1900s, Ireland's solitary shoemaker fairy was usually said to wear which colour?

Samuel Lover in 1831 described a red square-cut coat laced with gold, and Yeats gave his a jacket with seven rows of seven buttons. The word was first printed in English in 1604.

Which airline's air traffic control call sign is 'SHAMROCK'?

Aer Lingus: its aircraft answer to 'Shamrock' on air traffic control radio, and Ireland has registered the plant as a trademark, winning a German Supreme Court appeal over it in 1985.

On 17 March 2018 Ireland beat England 24–15 to seal a Grand Slam at which ground?

Twickenham: Ireland's 24-15 win at England's home ground on 17 March 2018 sealed its third Grand Slam, after 1948 and 2009.

In 1940 the feast was officially moved to 3 April so it would not clash with what?

Palm Sunday: 17 March 1940 fell on Palm Sunday, so the feast moved to 3 April; it shifted again in 2008, to 15 March, to stay out of Holy Week, a clash that will not recur until 2160.

A 1995 US Supreme Court ruling let Boston's parade organisers exclude whom?

Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston was the case. New York lifted its ban in 2014 and Boston in 2015.