A Toast to St. Patrick

St. Patrick’s Day started in 1631 as a celebration of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland who died on March 17, 461. Born on the western frontier of the Roman Empire in what is now Wales, he claimed he was captured by Irish raiders as a teenager and forced to work for a local chieftain in the north of Ireland. There he found faith during six years of captivity before he escaped and made his way home. He found his calling with the church, taking the name Patricius, and decided to return to Ireland and spread his faith. He was sainted for his efforts to convert Irish Druids into Christians.

Today’s celebrations are a long way from the sober and devout remembrance of a holy figure, but some elements of St. Patrick’s history remain. What began as a traditional feast day has evolved to focus more on drinks than on food, a shift some attribute to its close proximity to Lent and an excuse to take a day off from abstinence. While some legends — like St. Patrick driving all of the snakes from Ireland — sound like pure mythology today, the tale that he used a three-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity persists as a symbol of both his adopted country and his holiday. Even the day’s color palette is symbolic, as a nod to the Emerald Isle’s lush green landscape.

The United States has a long history of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, and in fact many of the holiday’s traditions have American origins. Boston claims to be the first place in the New World to celebrate the saint’s day, beginning with a 1737 dinner hosted by Presbyterians from Northern Ireland. They launched the Charitable Irish Society, which still holds annual St. Patrick’s Day dinners and claims to be the oldest Irish organization in North America. Cities across the U.S. put on parades full of green-clad Irish dancers, pipers and marching bands while spectators dress like leprechauns and drink green beer. Chicago famously dyes its river green.

In Britain and Ireland, the celebration is much more rooted in the church. Until the 1970s, pubs in Ireland were required to close on March 17, but in 1995 the government started promoting the holiday as a way to boost tourism. While celebrations have been muted in the past few years due to the pandemic, this year marks a return to in-person events. London held its St. Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday, drawing a crowd of 50,000. Across Ireland, festivities are expected to kick off today and run through the weekend in a long-overdue full-force celebration.

In recent years Ireland has launched the Global Greening initiative to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day around the world by encouraging nations to illuminate monuments and landmarks with emerald lights. Hundreds of icons have gone green, from the Sydney Opera House in Australia to Canada’s Niagara Falls to Germany’s Funkturm, a former broadcasting tower in Berlin. This year Ireland is suspending the usual greening and encouraging participants to instead display blue and yellow in solidarity with Ukraine. Tourism Ireland says it’s looking forward to the “biggest ever Global Greening” next year in what they hope will be “a more peaceful world.”

For many partiers it wouldn’t be St. Patrick’s Day without Guinness. The dark Irish stout known for its hypnotic pour is smooth, frothy and low in alcohol compared to its stout brothers and sisters. Brewing since 1759 in Dublin, Guinness has been a staple of the festival and is drunk in unfathomable amounts — 13 million pints in the U.S. alone — on March 17.

Not to be confused with the alcoholic shot of the same name, the “Irish breakfast” is a hearty meal that’s delicious at any time, but has cultural significance on St. Patrick’s Day. It is a heavy feast of bacon, sausages, eggs, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and baked beans. What sets it apart from a “full English” breakfast is the addition of a type of sausage called black pudding — also known as “blood pudding” after its most notable ingredient — and soda bread. The only problem with a good Irish breakfast? The desire to go right back to sleep afterwards.

What many Americans know as a traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal is actually about as Irish as Lucky Charms. While corned beef and cabbage is popular stateside, traditionally people in Ireland were more likely to feast on soda bread and pork stew. In the old days, beef was too expensive for ordinary Irish people, so it wasn’t until immigrants reached America that they began cooking with beef. And the salt-cured, slow-cooked beef brisket that we know as corned beef was likely purchased at kosher delis, meaning our favorite St. Patrick’s Day fare is more Jewish than Irish.

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If you’re staying sober today, don’t worry — there are plenty of opportunities to raise a glass throughout the year. Munich’s Oktoberfest, which takes place from mid-September to the beginning of October, is the largest of the Volkfests, or People’s Festivals. It started with the wedding of Bavarian Crown Prince Louis and Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen in October of 1810, when regular citizens were invited to celebrate their union. The festival became such a hit that it expanded to include horse races, fun fairs, parades, dance parties — and of course drinking a lot of beer — and it’s now celebrated the world over.

Mardi Gras may be over for this year, but the good news is you have almost a whole year to prepare for the party of all parties in New Orleans. Like other Carnivals around the world, Mardi Gras was originally a pre-Lenten feast when Christians indulged before giving up their favorite vices for Lent. But with its own special Louisiana flavor, “Fat Tuesday” has evolved into a cultural festival of arts, food, music and copious amount of alcohol. In fact, it tops the list of American holidays with the highest alcohol intake.

The second-highest alcohol consumption holiday is none other than New Year's Eve as partygoers toast the previous year all evening before raising a glass to the new year when the clock strikes midnight. Whether you’re celebrating the lunar new year or the Gregorian calendar, it’s an occasion worthy of a toast. The first recorded new year party was in ancient Babylon over 4,000 years ago when they celebrated the first new moon following the vernal equinox. And that’s one more occasion to celebrate: The vernal equinox is this Sunday, March 20 — just enough time to recover from St. Patrick’s Day.

What is your favorite St. Patrick's Day tradition? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected].