St. Patrick's Day: A Drunk History

St. Patrick's Day is just one of those days that gets people all riled up and such. Green beer, green clothes, green food, green everything. It's a glorious day. But do you know anything about it? I THOUGHT NOT! Well, most of you know about Christmas and Jesus, Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims, and the 4th of July and rednecks. So, I thought I'd spread the greenish words of glory onto those who have little clue what it's all about. Going Green: Facts, Fun, and the History of St. Patrick's Day.


St. Patrick's Day Facts

True Life: I'm a Drunk Irish Low-Level Blogger

-St. Patrick's Day was first celebrated in the 1600's in Ireland, but many Irish claim it was even before then that it was celebrated.
-It's popularity is due to the fact that the Irish Catholics used St. Patrick's Day as a break during Lent, so that they could drink. It eventually became an annual tradition.
-Originally, the color Blue was widely associated with the holiday. The color green was adopted to honor St. Patrick, who used the 3-leaf clovered shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish while converting them. And also...Ireland is very green, not blue.
-St. Patrick's Day wasn't as widely celebrated until the Irish government began to promote in the mid-1990s to gain tourism for Ireland and spread the Irish culture, like Australians do with Cinco de Mayo.
-"Erin Go Braugh" means "Ireland Forever." You should ask anyone that says what it means and if they don't know, you should slap them. In the balls.
-Although 38 Million Americans claim Irish ancestry, only 135,000 were born in Ireland.
-St. Patrick was actually born in Britain.

St. Patrick's Day Fun

Asian Girls Drinkin' Guinness. Doesn't Get Much More Irish than that.

-There are 48,000 bars in America that serve green beer on St. Patrick's Day
-"Slainte" is the most common Irish toast, meaning "health."
-Boston has the longest running St. Patrick's Day parade in the United States, the first being in 1737. This was the first St. Patrick's Day parade in the world, ever.
-The only countries that get off work for the day are Ireland, Montserrat, and the Canadian territory Newfoundland. Montserrat, a small Caribbean island, was founded by Irish refugees and the day celebrates a slave uprising in the late 1700s.
-Black and Tans, Irish Coffee, and "Light" beer will all get you made fun of, if you order them in Ireland.


Why Do People Drink on St. Patrick's Day? Just Because?
Pictured: Irish Pride

There is actually a legitimate reason that drinking on St. Patrick's Day became a tradition, besides all the fun. It comes from an old Irish lesson. As it's told, St. Patrick was served a glass of whiskey that was far from full. To teach the bar owner a lesson in generosity, he told the owner that there was a devil in the basement of the bar that grew stronger with every bit of dishonesty that took place inside. To get rid of the devil, the owner must change his ways. St. Patrick returned to the bar some time later, this time to find the owner overflowing customer's glasses with whiskey. He took the owner down to the basement and declared the demon gone. St. Patrick proclaimed afterwords that "everyone should have a drop of the hard stuff" on his Feast Day. This drinking of the hard stuff is known as "Patrick's Pot" or "Drowning the Shamrock," as it is custom to float a shamrock in their drink before imbibing.
Sometime later, in Heaven, St. Patrick was voted the "Saint With the Best Feast Day," just ahead of St. Valentine and little-known saint, St. Flag O'Day.


That's all I have for you....have a fun, safe, and very, very green St. Patrick's Day. Oh, and drunk. Have a drunk St. Patrick's Day!