While St. Patrick’s Day celebrations often produce images of T-shirts donning “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” leprechaun hats and pubs full of people, the holiday holds a deeper meaning.
Here’s a look at who Ireland’s patron saint was and why he is celebrated each year.
When did we start celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?
The first historical record of revelry for St. Patrick dates back to the 7th century in Ireland, Sarah Waidler, a visiting assistant professor of Irish language, literature and culture at New York University, told CBS News. However, she said people had likely already begun to honor him before that.
During medieval times, texts show that people not only believed St. Patrick was a saint, but also that he was a part of God’s final judgement of Irish people when they died. Over the years, Patrick became “strongly identified” with Ireland and would become one of its three patron saints, along with St. Brigid and St. Columba, Waidler said.
The first St. Patrick’s Day parade currently on record was held in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1601, historians say. Not, as some might assume, on the Emerald Isle.
“The parade is an embracing of the Irish diaspora,” said Elizabeth Stack, the executive director of the American Irish Historical Society in New York City. Especially, she said, in times when there was pushback against Catholics.
Through the parades, the Irish community is saying, “Yes, we’re proud of our heritage and our roots,” she said, “but we are also a very vibrant part of a modern city or a modern America.”
It’s also a gentle reminder, she said, that “there are a lot of us, and if we choose to vote as a block, we can use a lot of power.”
According to the U.S. Census, 31.5 million Americans, or 9.5% of the population, claimed Irish ancestry in 2021. In 2023, the population of Ireland was 5.3 million. “There’s more of us that left the country then stayed there,” said Stack.
Who was St. Patrick?
This may come as a surprise to some, but St. Patrick was not actually Irish. “The patron saint of Ireland is actually a Welshman,” Cian T. McMahon, an expert on modern Ireland and the Irish diaspora and history professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told CBS News.
“In the days before there were England, Scotland and Wales, it was Rome,” he said. So, Patrick was born in what is now Wales, but was then Roman Britain.
Much of what historians know about St. Patrick comes from two of his very own writings, which is considered lucky to have from so long ago, Waidler said. The two pieces were likely written in the 5th century, but Patrick did not date them or give much historical context. So, historians aren’t certain of when he lived.
However, according to these writings, Patrick said he was captured when he was 16 years old by slavers from Roman Britain, where he was, in McMahon’s words, a “lukewarm Catholic.”
The slavers took Patrick to Ireland, where he said he worked as a shepherd. This hardship helped him rediscover his faith, and after 6 years, he escaped to Britain, attributing his release to the works of God. After escaping, he spent many years training to become a bishop, according to his writings.
Waidler said it is hard to say if Patrick was truly recognized as a bishop because there are no other historical texts backing this claim up.
After he supposedly became a bishop, Patrick said that in a vision he heard the voice of an Irish fisherman calling him back to the country he was formerly enslaved in. He then went back to the Celtic Pagan nation of Ireland and converted people to Catholicism.
St. Patrick died on March 17, as recognized by the church. Waidler said it is hard to know the exact year.
Patrick’s story, many later writers point out, is very similar to Moses’ from the Bible.
After being kidnapped into slavery, he could have been vengeful or looked down on the people who put him in bondage, Stack said. But he decided, instead, to forgive the Irish.
In doing so, she said he “changed Ireland forever, converting a Pagan country to an intensely Catholic one.” St. Patrick’s “beautiful message” of tolerance and forgiveness “becomes more and more relevant,” said Stack.
In modern times, many know of the legends that St. Patrick rid Ireland of snakes and that he taught the idea of the holy trinity by using a shamrock.
According to Waidler, the stories attributing the expulsion of poisonous creatures or reptiles to St. Patrick began in the 12th century. However, some later writers see the expulsion of snakes as a metaphor for paganism. “It is a story that keeps getting repeated after the 12th century and also appears in early images of the saint,” she said.
“Shamrocks are harder to trace,” Waidler said. The term shamrock first appears in 1571, but it was first attributed to St. Patrick in a treatise on Ireland’s native plants in 1726. “Shamrocks, by the way,” she said, “are simply clovers.”
St. Patrick’s Day also used to be associated with the color blue. However, as other countries started celebrating it in more modern times, green became associated with the day because Irish-Americans attribute green to “all things Ireland,” said Waidler.
Where is St. Patrick’s Day celebrated?
“The better question is where is it not celebrated,” said McMahon.
Mass migration has been a defining feature of Irish life since the early 1700s, he said. “Wherever Irish people end up settling, they use St. Patrick’s Day as a way to make themselves at home.”
“We can be Irish anywhere in the world,” he said.
Irish people have emigrated to “every corner of the world,” said Stack. Dubai, Singapore, Australia, the U.S. and more all celebrate the saint.
“Irish people made a point of welcoming non-Irish people to St. Patrick’s Day,” McMahon explained.
Even George Washington, an Anglican Christian, was a member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in Philadelphia. The rationale, McMahon said, was, “We were born Irish but became American … why can’t Washington be born American but become Irish?”
Ireland’s leaders also tend to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in other countries, McMahon said. This, he explained, is because its government recognizes that the day is an opportunity to reconnect with friends and allies around the world.
The Irish Prime Minister, or the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, visited the White House on March 12 to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year.
According to Ireland’s website, “Our diaspora fosters goodwill. It generates economic development. It cherishes and showcases our diverse and dynamic culture.”
So, the common phrase “Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day” may have some truth to it.
