Saint Patrick’s Day or the Feast of the Saint Patrick (“the Day of the festival of the Patrick”). It is the cultural and the religious celebration, the death date of the most commonly recognised patron saint of the Ireland, Saint Patrick (c. AD 385-461).
Saint Patrick’s Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early seventeenth century and it is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion especially the church of the Ireland, the Eastern Orthodox Church and Lutheran Church. The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of the Christianity in the Ireland as well as celebrating the heritage and the culture of the Irish in the general. Its celebration generally involves the public parades and the festival, céilithe and the wearing of the green attire or the shamrocks. At this day Christians also attends the church services and the Lenten restrictions on eating and the drinking alcohol are lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday’s tradition of the alcohol consumption.
Saint Patrick’s Day is the public holiday in the Republic of the Ireland, Northern Ireland, Newfoundland and the Labrador and Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora around the world, especially in the Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia and the New Zealand.
Saint Patrick: Much of what is known about the St. Patrick comes from the Declaration, which was the allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in the Roman Britain in the fourth century into the wealthy Romano-British family. His father was the deacon and his grandfather was the priest in the Christian church.
On the St. Patrick’s Day it is customary to wear the shamrocks or the green clothing or the accessories. The St Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, the three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the Pagan Irish. The wearing of the 'St Patrick's Day Cross', especially in the World War I era, by the Irish, was also a popular custom. These St Patrick's Day Crosses have a Celtic Christian cross made of paper that is "covered with silk or ribbon of different colours, and a bunch or rosette of green silk in the centre."
The colour green has been associated with Ireland since at least the 1640s, when the green harp flag was used by the Irish Catholic Confederation. Green ribbons and shamrocks have been worn on St Patrick's Day since at least the 1680s.Green was adopted as the colour of the Friendly Brothers of St Patrick, an Irish fraternity founded in about 1750.
St. Patrick’s Day is now widely celebrated as the secular holiday with many of its worldwide participants seeking to enjoy the Irish culture in the general instead of the specially celebrating the St. Patrick’s contribution to spread of the Christianity in the Ireland.
At this day, food is an important part of the celebration, with many people turning to the “traditional” Irish food like the corned beef and the cabbage and the soda bread. Many people prepare the green food for St. Patrick’s Day- anything from the green pasta, green pizza and the green eggs and ham to the green deserts and pastries. And of course, there is the plenty of beer and liquor especially in pubs. In fact, Guinness has even tried to make St. Patrick’s Day a national holiday in the United States.
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