Every March 17, the U.S. transforms into an emerald country for a day. Americans wear green clothes and drink green beer. Green milkshakes, bagels, and grits appear on menus. In a trick worthy of a leprechaun, Chicago even dyes its river green.
Revellers from coast to coast celebrate all things Irish by raising pints of Guinness and applauding bagpipers, step dancers, and bands marching through city streets. These familiar annual traditions, however, were not imported from Ireland. They were created in America.
In contrast to the revelry in the U.S., March 17 has been more of a holy day than a holiday in Ireland. Since 1631, St. Patrick’s Day has been a religious feast to commemorate the anniversary of the death in the 5th century of the missionary credited with spreading Christianity in Ireland. For several centuries, March 17 was a day of solemnity in Ireland, with Catholics attending church in the morning and partaking in modest meals in the afternoon. There were no parades and certainly no emerald-hued food products, particularly because blue, not green, was the traditional color associated with the patron saint of Ireland before the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Boston has long claimed the first St. Patrick’s Day in the American colonies. On March 17, 1737, more than two dozen Presbyterians who emigrated from Northern Ireland gathered to honor St. Patrick and form the Charitable Irish Society to help Irish immigrants in distress in the city. The oldest Irish organization in North America still holds an annual dinner every St. Patrick’s Day.
Historian Michael Francis, however, unearthed evidence that St. Augustine, Florida, may have hosted the first St. Patrick’s Day in America. While researching records of Spanish gunpowder expenditures, Francis found notes indicating that cannon blasts or gunfire were used to honor the saint in 1600 and that residents of the Spanish-garrisoned city paraded through the streets in honor of St. Patrick the following year, perhaps at the behest of an Irish priest living there.
The March 17 parades of the Irish through the streets of New York City irritated nativist and anti-Catholic mobs, who started their own tradition of “paddy-making” on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, raising effigies of Irish people dressed in rags and potato necklaces with whiskey bottles in hand, until the practice was banned in 1803.
After Irish Catholics flooded the country in the decade following the Irish potato blight in 1845, they clung to their Irish identities and took to the streets in St. Patrick’s Day parades to show strength in numbers as a political replica to the nativist “Know-Nothings.”
The meal that became a staple of St. Patrick’s Day across the country – corned beef and cabbage – was also an American innovation. While ham and cabbage were consumed in Ireland, corned beef proved a cheaper substitute for impoverished immigrants.
As St. Patrick’s Day evolved in the 20th century into a day of celebration for Americans of all ethnicities, the celebration in Ireland remained solemn. The Connaught Telegraph reported on Ireland’s observances on March 17, 1952: “St. Patrick’s Day was much like any other day, only more boring.” For decades, Irish laws prohibited bars from opening on holy days like March 17. Until 1961, the only legal place to have a drink in the Irish capital on St. Patrick’s Day was the Royal Dublin Dog Show, which naturally attracted those with only a passing interest in dogs.
The festive atmosphere only spread to Ireland after the advent of television, when the Irish could see all the fun happening across the ocean. “Modern Ireland took inspiration from America,” says McCormack. The multi-day St. Patrick’s Day Festival, launched in Dublin in 1996, now attracts a million people each year.
Irish people are now embracing St. Patrick’s Day traditions from Irish America, such as corned beef and cabbage, says McCormack. There are some American traditions, however, that may not catch on in Ireland, such as green Guinness. As McCormack says, “St. Patrick never drank green beer.”
St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC
More than 150 years ago, Archbishop John Hughes announced his plans to build the “new” St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
At a ceremony at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Archbishop Hughes proposed “for the glory of Almighty God, for the honor of the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin, for the exaltation of the Holy Mother Church, for the dignity of our ancient and glorious Catholic name, to erect a Cathedral in the City of New York that would be worthy of our growing numbers, intelligence, and wealth as a religious community, and, in all respects, worthy as a public architectural monument of the present and prospective crowns of this metropolis of the American continent.”
It took 21 years to build and was finally opened to the public in the spring of 1879. According to the Archbishop, more than a million prayer candles are lit at St. Patrick’s Cathedral each year, and five million people visit the Cathedral annually.
Here are some facts about St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC:
• St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC is the largest Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral in the U.S.;
• The cornerstone of the Cathedral was laid in 1858;
• The Cathedral was named after St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, in response to Irish immigrants;
• The new gallery organ, which was replaced in 1930, has 7,855 pipes;
• It has 21 altars and 19 bells, each named in honor of a different saint;
• The Cathedral has over 2,800 stained glass panels;
• Eight archbishops of New York are buried in a crypt beneath the high altar;
• In normal times, there are between 18 and 15 masses celebrated every day, and 150 weddings per year.
The NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade
The NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade is one of New York’s largest traditions. The first parade was on March 17, 1762. It was made up of a band of nostalgic Irish expatriates and members of the Irish army serving in the British Army stationed in the colonies in New York. It was a time when wearing green was a sign of Irish pride, but it was prohibited in Ireland. At that 1762 parade, participants reveled in the freedom to speak Irish, wear green, sing Irish songs, and play bagpipes with melodies significant to the Irish immigrants of that time.
Today, the Parade starts at 44th Street and 5th Avenue at 11 a.m. and proceeds up the avenue to 79th Street. Throughout the day, along the Parade route, millions of spectators come to celebrate.
Sources: history.com, nycstpatricksparade.org & irishcentral.com