03/17/2022
Happy St Patrick's Day, Montgomery! isn't known for it's step dancers, green beer, or other St. Patrick's Day revelry - but did you know that neither is Ireland? The familiar revelry associated with this day was actually made in America!
According to history.com, March 17 has traditionally been more holy day than holiday in Ireland. Since 1631, St. Patrick’s Day has been a religious feast day to commemorate the anniversary of the 5th-century death of the missionary credited with spreading Christianity to Ireland. For several centuries, March 17 was a day of solemnity in Ireland with Catholics attending church in the morning and partaking of modest feasts in the afternoon. There were no parades and certainly no emerald-tinted food products, particularly since blue, not green, was the traditional color associated with Ireland’s patron saint prior to the 1798 Irish Rebellion.
After Irish Catholics flooded into the America in the decade following the failure of Ireland’s potato crop in 1845, they clung to their Irish identities and took to the streets in St. Patrick’s Day parades to show strength in numbers. “Many who were forced to leave Ireland during the Great Hunger brought a lot of memories, but they didn’t have their country, so it was a celebration of being Irish,” says Mike McCormack, national historian for the Ancient Order of Hibernians. As the Irish slowly assimilated into American culture, those without Celtic blood began to join in St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
America's St. Patrick's Day party atmosphere spread to Ireland with the arrival of televisions in homes and images of the fun being had in America. Green beer, however, seems to be the one imported idea that Ireland is resisting!
