03/17/2025
Happy St. Patrick’s Day from The Sand Bucket at Seaside. Our new rates will help to put some extra savings in your “pot of gold”!
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🍀HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY from St. Augustine, Florida! 🗝️ It’s been proven in written records that the first event commemorating Saint Patrick in the U.S. was held in St. Augustine, Florida in 1600, and the first St. Patrick’s parade/procession took place in 1601.
This pre-dates Boston’s claim to the first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in 1737 (stpatricksday.com), and New York City’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1762 (history.com).
Found in Spanish archives on December 20, 2017 by historian Dr. J. Michael Francis, documents reveal that spring festivities included a feast day of San Patricio (St. Patrick) in the year 1600 in St. Augustine, Florida. The discovery was found in a gunpowder expenditures log in Spain’s Archivo General de Indias.
“While artillery pieces often were fired to help guide ships safely across St. Augustine’s protective sandbar, they were also fired during times of public celebrations and religious festivals,” Francis wrote in his blog for PBS (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/blog/uncovering-secrets-spanish-florida/)
Francis is a professor and Chair of the Department of History and Politics at University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He was recently appointed to the Florida Historical Commission. He’s been searching through those Spanish archives, off and on, for the past 30 years.
Also in Francis’ PBS blog: “In March of 1601, St. Augustine’s residents gathered together and processed through the city’s streets in honor of an Irish saint, who appears to have assumed a privileged place in the Spanish garrison town. Indeed, during these same years, St. Patrick was identified as the official ‘protector’ of the city’s maize fields.”
Saint Patrick is thought to have been born in the late fourth century, and is known for driving the snakes from Ireland (probably an analogy of putting an end to pagan practices). Saint Patrick wasn’t the first to bring Christianity to Ireland, but it is believed he encountered the Druids and abolished their pagan rites. He died on March 17, 460 A.D.
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