Saint Patrick's Day (Irish: Lá ’le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially St. Paddy's Day or Paddy's Day, is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa 385–461 AD), one of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on March 17.
The day is the national holiday of Ireland. It is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland and a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Montserrat, and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In the rest of Canada, Great Britain, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.
It became a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church due to the influence of the Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding[2] in the early part of the 17th century, and is a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. The feast day usually falls during Lent; if it falls on a Friday of Lent (unless it is Good Friday), the obligation to abstain from eating meat (usually corned beef) can be lifted by the local bishop. The date of the feast is occasionally, yet controversially, moved by church authorities when March 17 falls during Holy Week; this happened in 1940 when Saint Patrick's Day was observed on April 3 in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and happened again in 2008, having been observed on 15 March.[3] March 17 will not fall during Holy Week again until 2160.
(Source: Wikipedia.Org)
Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated worldwide by Irish people and increasingly by non-Irish people (usually in Australia and North America). Celebrations are generally themed around all things Irish and, by association, the colour green. Both Christians and non-Christians celebrate the secular version of the holiday by wearing green or orange, eating Irish food and/or green foods, imbibing Irish drink (such as Guinness or Baileys Irish Cream) and attending parades.
The St. Patrick's Day parade was first held in Boston in 1761, organized by the Charitable Irish Society. The first recorded parade was New York City's celebration which began on 18 March 1762 when Irish soldiers in the English military marched through the city with their music. The New York parade is the largest, typically drawing two million spectators and 150,000 marchers. The predominantly French-speaking Canadian city of Montreal, in the province of Québec has the longest continually running Saint Patrick's day parade in North America, since 1824; The city's flag has the Irish emblem, the shamrock, in one of its corners. Ireland's cities all hold their own parades and festivals, including Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Derry, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, and Waterford. Parades also take place in other Irish towns and villages. The St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, Ireland is part of a five-day festival; over 500,000 people attended the 2006 parade.
Other large parades include those in Savannah, Georgia, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, New London, Wisconsin (which changes its name to New Dublin the week of St. Patrick's Day), Dallas, Cleveland, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Jackson, Mississippi, Boston, Buffalo, Rochester, Houston, Chicago, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Rolla, Missouri, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Baton Rouge, Pittsburgh, Denver, St. Paul, Sacramento, San Francisco, Scranton, Seattle, Butte, Bayonne, New Jersey, Detroit, Syracuse,Albany Newport, Holyoke, MA, New Haven, CT,[8]Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and throughout much of the Western world. The parade held in Sydney, Australia, is recorded as being the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.
As well as being a celebration of Irish culture, Saint Patrick's Day is a Christian festival celebrated in the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, and some other denominations. The day almost always falls in the season of Lent. Some bishops will grant an indult, or release, from the Friday no-meat observance when St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday; this is sometimes colloquially known as a "corned-beef indult". When 17 March falls on a Sunday, church calendars (though rarely secular ones) move Saint Patrick's Day to the following Monday—and when the 17th falls during Holy Week (very rarely), the observance will be moved to the next available date or, exceptionally, before holy week. The public holiday in Ireland does not move and always remains at 17 March, being fixed on the State calendar.
In many parts of North America, Britain, and Australia, expatriate Irish and ever-growing crowds of people with no Irish connections but who may proclaim themselves "Irish for a day" also celebrate St. Patrick's Day, usually with the consumption of traditionally Irish alcoholic beverages (beer and stout, such as Murphy's, Beamish, Smithwicks, Harp, or Guinness; Irish whiskey; Irish coffee; or Baileys Irish Cream) and by wearing green-coloured clothing.
2007 marked the first annual St. Patrick's Day parade and festival in the Scottish city of Glasgow.
(Source: Wikipedia.Org)
