St. Patrick's Day
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136 free St. Patrick's Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
89 free St. Patrick's Day trivia questions with answers. From the real story of St. Patrick (hint: he wasn't Irish) to the reason Chicago dyes its river green, St. Patrick's Day is packed with surprising history and traditions. These 136 questions will test whether you're a true Irish trivia champion or just someone who wears green once a year.
30 of 136 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01According to tradition, what was St. Patrick's birth name?
Maewyn Succat
Tradition gives his birth name as Maewyn Succat; the seventh-century writer Tírechán listed four names for him, including Magonus and Succetus, while his own writings only ever call him Patricius.
Q 02According to legend, what did St. Patrick drive out of Ireland?
Snakes
Post-glacial Ireland never had any snakes; the earliest account of Patrick chasing them into the sea is by Jocelyn of Furness in the late twelfth century.
Q 03On what date is St. Patrick's Day celebrated each year?
March 17
March 17 is the traditional date of Patrick's death; Ireland kept it as a religious feast for centuries, and the parades now tied to it began among the Irish in America.
Q 04What plant did St. Patrick allegedly use to explain the Holy Trinity?
Shamrock
Legend says Patrick used the three-leaved shamrock to explain the Trinity; the story was first written down in 1726, though seventeenth-century Irish coins already show him holding one.
Q 05Which event shares a century with St. Patrick's mission to Ireland?
Fall of Rome
The fall of Rome in the West, in 476, shares the 400s with Patrick's mission; he was the son of a minor official under Roman rule and lived through the empire's last decades there.
Q 06What was St. Patrick's role during his years of captivity in Ireland?
Shepherd
Shepherd was his work for six years: Patrick wrote that he tended sheep every day and prayed up to a hundred times a day; tradition puts him at Slemish mountain, another theory near Killala Bay.
Q 07Where is St. Patrick believed to be buried?
Downpatrick
Tradition places Patrick's grave at Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, County Down, which is also said to hold Saint Brigid and Saint Columba, though none of the burials has been proven.
Q 08Irish friar Luke Wadding got St Patrick's Day onto the Catholic calendar in the 1600s while working in which city?
Rome
Rome was Wadding's base: the Waterford-born Franciscan founded St Isidore's College there in 1625 to train priests for Ireland, and sat on the commission revising the Church's prayer book, which added the feast.
Q 09Which colour did the Order of St Patrick adopt in 1783, leaving a shade still named after the saint?
Blue
Blue was the Order of St Patrick's choice; green had been linked with Ireland since the Irish Catholic Confederation's 1640s flag, and the United Irishmen made 'wearing of the green' a nationalist statement in the 1790s.
Q 10The first recorded St. Patrick's Day celebration in what is now the US took place in which Spanish colonial city?
St. Augustine
Records show St. Augustine, the Spanish colony in Florida, held a St. Patrick's celebration in 1600 organised by its Irish vicar Ricardo Artur, with a parade in 1601; Boston's first observance came in 1737.
Q 11Which city famously dyes its river green for St. Patrick's Day?
Chicago
Chicago has dyed the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day since 1962. The tradition started when a plumber's union worker noticed that a chemical used to detect sewage leaks turned the river green.
Q 12Which dish, not traditional in Ireland, became the classic St. Patrick's Day meal among Irish Americans?
Corned beef and cabbage
Corned beef and cabbage was adopted by Irish immigrants in nineteenth-century America, where beef was cheaper than at home; in Ireland itself the closer equivalent is bacon and cabbage.
Q 13Which Georgia city dyes its Forsyth Park fountain green for St. Patrick's Day?
Savannah
Q 21Bulmers, made in Clonmel and sold abroad as Magners, is which kind of drink?
Cider
Cider is the answer: Clonmel's Bulmers goes by Magners abroad because the English firm H. P. Bulmer kept the international rights to the Bulmers name.
Q 22What is the name of the famous prehistoric passage tomb in Ireland, older than the Egyptian pyramids?
Newgrange
Newgrange in County Meath is more than 5,000 years old, older than the Giza pyramids; its passage is aligned so the rising winter-solstice sun shines through a 'roofbox' and floods the inner chamber.
Q 23Which Irish beer brand is famous for its dark stout and is brewed at St. James's Gate in Dublin?
Guinness
Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the disused brewery on 31 December 1759, at a rent of £45 a year.
Savannah stages one of the largest St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the United States; festivities open with the ceremonial 'greening' of the fountain in Forsyth Park.
Q 14In Irish folklore, where is a leprechaun said to hide his pot of gold?
At the end of a rainbow
At the end of a rainbow is the usual hiding place, a late addition to the legend that suits a hoarder well, since a rainbow's end can never be reached.
Q 15Tourism Ireland's 'Global Greening' began in 2010 by lighting which Australian landmark green for St. Patrick's Day?
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House and Auckland's Sky Tower were the first two landmarks lit green for Tourism Ireland's Global Greening in 2010; hundreds of sites worldwide later joined.
Q 16By American St. Patrick's Day custom, what happens to anyone caught not wearing green?
You get pinched
You get pinched: in Irish American folklore, wearing green makes you invisible to leprechauns, who pinch anyone they can see.
Q 17Which famous Irish writer wrote 'Ulysses' and 'Dubliners'?
James Joyce
James Joyce's Ulysses unfolds on a single day in Dublin, June 16, 1904, and is considered one of the most important novels of the 20th century.
Q 18What is the name of the traditional Irish step dance show that became a global sensation in 1994?
Riverdance
Riverdance began as the interval act of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, starring Jean Butler and Michael Flatley with music by Bill Whelan, before growing into a full-length touring show.
Q 19In which Irish county is Croagh Patrick, climbed by pilgrims every 'Reek Sunday'?
Mayo
Mayo's Croagh Patrick rises above Clew Bay; Patrick is said to have fasted forty days on its summit, so thousands climb it each Reek Sunday, the last Sunday in July, some of them barefoot.
Q 20What is the longest river in Ireland?
River Shannon
The River Shannon rises at the Shannon Pot in County Cavan and meets the Atlantic below Limerick; for centuries it has divided the west of Ireland from the east and south.
Q 24In one tradition, a four-leaf clover's leaves stand for faith, love, luck and what?
Hope
Hope completes the set, and the luck is in the finding: the plant normally grows three leaves, and a fourth is a rare mutation.
Q 25Kissing which famous Irish landmark is said to grant the 'gift of the gab'?
Blarney Stone
The Blarney Stone is set in the battlements of Blarney Castle near Cork; to kiss it, visitors climb to the top and lean over backwards on the parapet's edge.
Q 26Which rocky islands off Ireland's west coast doubled as Ahch-To in two Star Wars films?
Skellig Islands
The Skellig Islands' larger rock, Skellig Michael, played Luke Skywalker's hideaway; its protected puffins could not be cleared from the shots, so the filmmakers turned them into porgs.
Q 27In which country's 2006 census did 14% of respondents report Irish origin?
Canada
Canada's 2006 census recorded about 4.35 million people of Irish origin, 14% of the population; by comparison Australia's 2011 census put Irish ancestry at 10.4%.
Q 28Which leavener reacts with buttermilk to make Irish quick bread rise without yeast?
Baking soda
Baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) is the leavener: the basic recipe is just flour, salt, buttermilk and soda, and the buttermilk's lactic acid reacts with it to form carbon dioxide bubbles.
Q 29Which 1916 Dublin rebellion came six years before the Irish Free State?
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was put down within a week and had little public support, but the execution of its leaders turned them into martyrs and swung opinion towards independence.
Q 30What was the Great Famine in Ireland primarily caused by?
Potato blight
Potato blight (Phytophthora infestans) rotted the crop much of Ireland lived on from 1845; about a million people died, and death and emigration cut the population by roughly a quarter.