Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

History 4 Minutes

I found some interesting facts and trivia about St. Patrick’s Day on The Irish Road Trip website:

The first section of our guide focuses on fun facts about St. Patrick – Ireland’s Patron Saint, while the second focuses on St. Patrick’s Day facts about the celebration itself.

Below, you’ll discover tales about pirates, snakes and the original color associated with St. Patrick (it wasn’t green!).

St. Patrick wasn’t Irish

If you’re not familiar with the story of St. Patrick, you may not be aware that he is not in fact Irish. St. Patrick is British. It’s believed that he was born in either Wales or Scotland. This is arguably the most frequently misbelieved of the many facts about St. Patrick.

 He wasn’t born in Ireland

St. Patrick was born in Roman-Britain (Britain was under Roman rule for 350 years) circa 386 A.D. He didn’t arrive in Ireland until 433. 

When he died

St. Patrick died in 461 in Saul, County Down, at the fine old age of (roughly) 75.

He was abducted at 16

This is another of the lesser known St. Patrick facts that I had never really heard. St. Patrick was abducted at the age of 16 and brought to Northern Ireland as a slave. He was forced to tend to sheep for 6 years in the mountains.

His remains are believed to be at Down Cathedral

It’s believed that the remains of St. Patrick are buried at Down Cathedral in County Down.  This magnificent Cathedral is a Church of Ireland cathedral and it’s found on the site of a Benedictine Monastery.

His name wasn’t Patrick

One of the more surprising St. Patrick’s Day facts revolves around his name. So, apparently ‘Patrick’ is a name that he picked up along the way at some point. St. Patrick’s real name was ‘Maewyn Succat’. The best of luck pronouncing that!

He didn’t banish snakes

For as far back as I can remember, I was told that St. Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland. However, there were never snakes in Ireland…

It’s believed that the St. Patrick snakes link is all about symbolism. In Judeo-Christian tradition, snakes are the symbol of evil.

It’s said that St. Patrick banishing the snakes from Ireland represents his fight to bring the word of God to Ireland.

He escaped Ireland by boat

According to St. Patrick’s Confession (a book that is said to have been written by St. Patrick), God told Patrick to flee his captures and make his way to the coast where a boat would be waiting to take him back home.

A dream led him back to Ireland

After escaping his captures in Ireland, St. Patrick returned to Roman-Britain. It’s said that one night had a dream that the people of Ireland were calling him back to tell them about God. 

Not before he spent 12 years in France…

After having the dream that called him back to Ireland, he was worried. He felt unprepared for the task ahead. 

St. Patrick decided that he must follow his studies first, to better equip himself for the task ahead.

He traveled to France where he trained in a monastery. It wasn’t for 12 years after the dream that he returned to Ireland.

He used the shamrock in his teachings

St. Patrick is often associated with the shamrock. It’s said that, upon returning to Ireland, he used the three-leafed plant as a metaphor for the Hold Trinity. It is now one of the more notable symbols of Ireland, along with the Celtic Cross.

St. Patrick’s Day facts and trivia

The next section of our fun St. Patrick’s Day facts focuses on the day itself – March 17th.

Why March 17th?

St. Patrick’s Day is held on March 17th as this is the day that St. Patrick died. On March 17th we celebrate his life along with Irish culture.

The first parade wasn’t held in Ireland

I’d never heard this St. Patrick’s Day fact before today! The first St. Patrick’s Day parade wasn’t held in Ireland – it was held in Boston in the United States in 1737. To this day some of the biggest St. Patrick’s Day parades take place in the USA.

Ireland’s first parade

The very first St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland was held in County Waterford in 1903. 

A national holiday

St. Patrick’s Day is a bank holiday in Ireland. This means that many people have the day off, as it’s a national holiday. Schools, government offices and many private workplaces close for business on March 17th.

Green isn’t the original color associated with St. Patrick

Interestingly enough, the original color associated with St. Patrick wasn’t green – it was blue. I can’t image people legging it about the place with blue face paint on!

The largest parade in the world

This is one of the few St. Patrick’s Day facts that I did know..! The largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world takes place in New York City. The parade attracts a staggering two million+ people every year.

13,000,000 pints of Guinness are sipped

Yep – a whopping 13,000,000 pints of Guinness (the most popular of the many Irish beers) are drank on March 17th across the world! 

SOURCE: The Irish Road Trip

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Published by pat frederick

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96 thoughts on “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!”

            1. oh heck no!
              i didn’t want to do mine either…but it was a twofer. we haven’t rearranged the furniture before–we moved it out to clean and do the floors underneath, but it’s always been in the same place.
              hubby has worn the back cushion in the place where he sits and i can’t fluff it up anymore. so i wanted to move the loveseat where the sofa is and create a better seating situation for his back…
              tmi? lol

              Liked by 1 person

    1. Good morning, Pat! We’ve got a chilly 27 on the thermometer this morning, partly cloudy. Interesting info on the holiday – I never knew anything about it at all, tbh.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Morning Filly!
        we had a brief shower now just clouds…
        we’re moving our furniture around in the great room this morning…I wanna do the floors better and hubby wore out his spot on the sofa so we’re moving that and the loveseat–better for his back.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Talk to the Hands Progs

    March 17, 2024 8:11 am

    https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2024/03/16/district-judge-gun-ban-illegal-immigrant-unconstitutional/

    The judge was a Barack Obama appointee.

    Next step: arming the illegal aliens.

    Any questions?

    Maquis

    Maquis

    March 17, 2024 8:24 am

    Reply to  Talk to the Hands Progs

    The case at hand centered on Carbajal-Flores, who was “charged with possession of a firearm while illegally or unlawfully in the United States.” He had a handgun in his possession “in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois,” on June 1, 2020. He was charged for being a non-citizen in possession for a firearm.

    Carbajal-Flores sought twice, unsuccessfully, to have his indictment removed. But in his third attempt, a decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States’ Bruen (2022) decision, resulted in a different outcome.

    Coleman, a Barack Obama appointee, countered government arguments against Carbajal-Flores’ firearm possession by noting:

    The government argues that Carbajal-Flores is a noncitizen who is unlawfully present in this country. The Court notes, however, that Carbajal-Flores has never been convicted of a felony, a violent crime, or a crime involving the use of a weapon. Even in the present case, Carbajal-Flores contends that he received and used the handgun solely for self-protection and protection of property during a time of documented civil unrest in the Spring of 2020.

    Looks like.

    So the illegals have SupraConstitutional Rights, they exceed ours.Yup, they just enfranchised criminals, guaranteed to come at our expense and sorrow.

    this decision, which i hope is overturned by SCOTUS, is ridiculous! how can an illegal be vetted to own a gun–did he produce all the documents a citizen has to? how were those docs verified? he could have changed his name a dozen times…how would we know?

    Liked by 2 people

  11. Just The News: “Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake turned in her petition signatures to qualify for the July 30 primary ballot on Friday morning.

    “Frankly, we could keep collecting signatures – there’s so much support for our campaign and our candidacy – but we just wanted to get this part done and move on to the next phase of winning this election, taking back a U.S. Senate seat and taking back the majority in the United States Senate,” Lake told reporters after turning in the signatures.

    Her petition filing happened the morning after her rally in Cave Creek, the first major rally she’s held since announcing her campaign in October. Lake estimates 10,120 signatures. She needed a minimum of 7,072 in order to qualify, but signatures do need to be verified before it becomes official, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.

    In her speech, Lake said that she hopes to unite the party ahead of the general election. “I’m ready to bring people in who weren’t with us the whole way,” said Lake, who ran for governor in 2022.

    U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate, turned in an estimated 14,186 signatures on March 4, The Center Square reported. He needed 6,556 signatures to qualify for the Democratic primary. “So I’m proud to turn in these signatures for us. This is a good example of Arizona grit, where we don’t back down, we stare at the fight and get into it,” Gallego said at the time.

    Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is also in the race for the Republican nomination, but polling suggests that Lake will win by a wide margin, according to FiveThirtyEight.

    Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced earlier this month that she would not run for re-election, which was expected given that she would have needed to garner over 40,000 signatures by April 1 as an independent to get a spot on the ballot in November. Sinema left the Democratic Party in December 2022.”

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Oh, the “party” won’t be united and frankly, who really GAS about the “party” any more? There really should be a third MAGA party because people that close to the border are changing their minds quickly!!! IDT the letter behind someone’s name really matters much any more to a lot of people. They just want this shit fixed pronto!

        Liked by 1 person

        1. agreed…but notice President Trump has not reached out to nasty niki or her side of the party to unify…we don’t need backstabbers in our party any more..,
          i just said it because Kari said she hopes to unify the party.

          Liked by 1 person

  12. Holy shit!!! That’s quite a discrepancy!!!

    EXCERPT: “California revised job growth for 2023 from 325,000 jobs to just 50,000 jobs, suggesting the state’s $73 billion deficit for the coming year may be even larger than earlier estimated. With a rising unemployment rate, this means there are fewer workers paying taxes, and more individuals receiving unemployment benefits, which will both reduce tax revenue and increase spending.

    “The corrected data show that the state added just 50,000 jobs between September 2022 and September 2023,” wrote the state-run, non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office in its revision report. “The monthly jobs report, which the administration and the Legislature relied on to gauge the economy during that period, showed the labor market growing steadily, appearing to add more than 300,000 jobs over that period.” ….

    https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/ca-revises-2023-job-growth-325k-jobs-just-50k-jobs-half-government

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Good morning, Pat!

    St Patrick was a fierce, fearless truth warrior!

    He won pagan Ireland for Christ.

    Generations later, Christian monks saved ‘civilization’ when barbarian Moslem hordes invaded Europe – they hid saved books containing knowledge and history in remote monasteries that the barbarians never found.

    HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION by historian Thomas Cahill – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Irish_Saved_Civilization

    The Celtic Monks that Saved Civilization – http://www.markfisherauthor.com/2016/08/the-celtic-monks-that-saved-civilization-part-i/

    Quote:“Cahill argues a case for the Irish people’s critical role in preserving Western Civilization from utter destruction by the Huns and the Germanic tribes (Visigoths, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Ostrogoths, etc.). The book retells the story from the collapse of the Roman Empire and the pivotal role played by members of the clergy at the time. A particular focus is placed upon Saint Patrick and retells his early struggles through slavery; basically retelling portions of The Confession of Saint Patrick. Early parts of the book examine Ireland before Patrick and the role of Saint Augustine of Canterbury. Particular focus is placed upon Saint Columba and the monks he trained and the monasteries he set up in the Hiberno-Scottish mission. These holy men, according to Cahill, “single-handedly refounded European civilization throughout the continent.”

    Thank GOD for the Irish and many faithful like Fr. Kolakovic – who – through the ages had faithful hearts and did not bend or succumb to the darkness of evil – but shined their lights in the darkness.

    We are called upon to do the same whenever evil-doers try to dominate our country and world, our church, and our children’s minds and lives.

    Liked by 1 person

      2. They have become pagans – they no longer have a reverent fear of the Lord God – maybe need another St. Patrick to lead them back to the One True God.

        Liked by 1 person

  41. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

    2. Good night! Hope the snow stops. Things are greening up here already and I think the Starlings have returned – nesting under the eaves again! SMH

      Liked by 1 person

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