A must-see celebration for Irish people all over the world.
This Sunday, March 17, Ireland is in the spotlight with, as every year, numerous celebrations organized in the four corners of the planet on the occasion of this great holiday.
This festival takes its name from Saint Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland, considered the founder of Irish Christianity in the 5th century.
Born in island Brittany, Maewyn Succat, her real name, was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery at the age of 16.
He worked as a shepherd for 6 years and became religious during his captivity.
He managed to escape to island Brittany and became a bishop, before returning to Ireland, on the orders of Pope Celestine I, to evangelize the country.
It is in his honor that Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated every March 17, the day of his death in 461. A date recognized as a religious holiday in the Irish calendar from the early 17th century, before Pope Urban VIII proclaimed this date as a feast of the Catholic Church in 1631.
A public holiday since 1903 in Ireland, March 17 has become a sort of unofficial national holiday for the Irish, as the State of Ireland does not have one.
If this festival has also become a commercial festival where beer flows freely, for many Irish Catholics it remains a holy day during which we go to mass.
A first celebration… in the United States
Over the years, Saint Patrick's Day has spread far beyond the borders of the British Isles and has become popular around the world.
It was also in the United States, where the Irish community is very established, that the first Saint Patrick's Day event took place, in Boston in 1737, before arriving in 1762 in New York.
In Ireland, the first parade did not take place until 1931.
The Chicago River in Saint Patrick mode 💚 pic.twitter.com/s4Z8FxlRP0
— TRIP DOUBLE ✈️🏨🏀😍 (@TripDoubleUSA) March 15, 2023
Since 1996, the Irish government has transformed the parade into a five-day festival where numerous concerts, shows and street entertainment are organized to highlight the richness of Irish heritage.
Since then, bars and pubs in countries around the world have taken over Saint Patrick's Day to celebrate.
On this occasion, participants have the custom of wearing a shamrock, the plant used by Saint Patrick to convert the Irish to Christianity which has become the symbol of Ireland, and more generally of dressing in green, an inseparable color from the Saint Patrick.