The first St Paddy’s Day parade was not held in Ireland, but in Boston in the year 1737.

St. Patrick was not Irish. Historical lore states he was kidnapped and put into slavery where he received a vision from God telling him to flee to the coast where he would board a ship back to Britain. After receiving a second vision, he returned to Ireland to begin converting Pagans to Christianity. This St. Patrick was actually Britain-Romano, so it could be one and the same

A true Irish shamrock is actually a Dutch clover, it goes by the scientific name Trefolium repens and it is technically a white clover. The flower is white

The shamrock was said to have been used by St. Patrick to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity in an attempt to convert Irish Pagans. Going clockwise, the top leaf presumably represented the Holy Spirit, the second leaf God and the third was the Christ. This countered the Druidic belief in the shamrock representing the trinity of Man, Goddess and God or life, death and rebirth.

Four-leaf clovers are a symbol of good luck/good fortune for many people. So much so, that in Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey states that there are farms which produce up to 10,000 four-leaf clovers a day that are packaged as good luck charms and sold. He also suspected the fourth leaf is created by feeding the plants a secret genetically engineered chemical.

The University of Georgia’s extensive botany program has reportedly isolated the gene responsible, allowing breeders to identify which plants will produce a fourth leaf.

The first leaf of the four-leaf clover is said to stand for hope, the second for faith, the third for love and the fourth for luck.

Green is not the original color associated with St. Patrick- blue is. Green was not generally associated with the saint until the 19th century when people began wearing shamrocks and green ribbons to celebrate the holiday.
It wasn’t until 1903 that St. Patrick’s Day became an official holiday in Ireland. Occasionally, the holiday will fall during Holy Week and has to be moved to a day where it won’t interfere with the liturgical calendar, as it is a feast day for the Irish church. The secular celebration is held on the 17th, regardless. St. Patrick’s Day will not fall during a Holy Week again until 2160.


Not everyone recognizes St. Patrick’s day, however the following countries do: Argentina, Great Britain, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, Russia, South Korea, and Switzerland and the U.S.

Aside from Ireland, the largest celebrations take place in Boston, New York, and Savannah, Georgia. In Chicago and Savannah, they are so into the celebration they dye the rivers green.


There are 19 cities in the world called Dublin; twelve in the United States, six in Australia, and of course the original in Ireland.

St. Patrick is credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland. This is an odd statement since there are, in fact, snakes in Ireland! So what could he have driven out of the area then? It was common for the Druids to refer to themselves as “adders” or serpents of knowledge. When it is said that St. Pat drove the snakes out of Ireland it is a slur against the Druids.

According to a 2003 census, 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry; this is almost nine times the population of Ireland itself (4.1 million people). less