St. Patrick's Day honors St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. We celebrate St. Patrick's Day on March 17. Americans march in parades, dance the Irish jig and gather to sing Irish songs. People wear green in memory of Ireland, the Emerald Isle and wear shamrocks, clover with three leaves.
March 17 was not the day St. Patrick was born but the day he died. Even though we don't know the date of his birth, most scholars believe the year was 385 AD and the year of his death was 461 AD.
St. Patrick was born in Wales, studied religion to become a priest and then went to Ireland to teach the people about God. There are many wonderful stories about St. Patrick, some true and some not true. The most famous legend is that he drove the snakes out of Ireland. This did not happen but the Irish will tell you that you cannot find a snake throughout the whole country of Ireland.
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), one of the patron saints of Ireland. It takes place on 17 March, the date on which Patrick is held to have died.
The day is the national holiday of the Irish people. 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 in the early part of the 17th century, and is a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. The date of the feast is occasionally moved by church authorities due to March 17 falling in Holy Week; this last happened in 1940, when Saint Patrick's Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and will happen again in 2008, when it shall be held on 15 March to avoid the second day in Holy Week.
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