St. Patrick's Day
is celebrated on March 17, his
religious feast day and the
anniversary of his death in the
fifth century. The Irish have
observed this day as a religious
holiday for over a thousand years.
On St. Patrick's
Day, which falls during the
Christian season of Lent, Irish
families would traditionally attend
church in the morning and celebrate
in the afternoon. Lenten
prohibitions against the consumption
of meat were waived and people would
dance, drink, and feast—on the
traditional meal of Irish bacon and
cabbage.
The First Parade
St.
Patrick's Day Parade
The first St.
Patrick's Day parade took place not
in Ireland, but in the United
States. Irish soldiers serving in
the English military marched through
New York City on March 17, 1762.
Along with their music, the parade
helped the soldiers to reconnect
with their Irish roots, as well as
fellow Irishmen serving in the
English army.
Over the next
thirty-five years, Irish patriotism
among American immigrants
flourished, prompting the rise of
so-called "Irish Aid" societies,
like the Friendly Sons of Saint
Patrick and the Hibernian Society.
Each group would hold annual parades
featuring bagpipes (which actually
first became popular in the Scottish
and British armies) and drums.
In 1848, several
New York Irish aid societies decided
to unite their parades to form one
New York City St. Patrick's Day
Parade. Today, that parade is the
world 's oldest civilian parade and
the largest in the United States,
with over 150,000 participants.
Each year, nearly
three million people line the
one-and-a-half mile parade route to
watch the procession, which takes
more than five hours. Boston,
Chicago, Philadelphia, and Savannah
also celebrate the day with parades
including between 10,000 to 20,000
participants.
No Irish Need Apply
Up until the
mid-nineteenth century, most Irish
immigrants in America were members
of the Protestant middle class. When
the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland
in 1845, close to a million poor,
uneducated, Catholic Irish began to
pour into America to escape
starvation. Despised for their
religious beliefs and funny accents
by the American Protestant majority,
the immigrants had trouble finding
even menial jobs. When Irish
Americans in the country's cities
took to the streets on St. Patrick's
Day to celebrate their heritage,
newspapers portrayed them in
cartoons as drunk, violent monkeys.
However, the Irish
soon began to realize that their
great numbers endowed them with a
political power that had yet to be
exploited. They started to organize,
and their voting block, known as the
"green machine," became an important
swing vote for political hopefuls.
Suddenly, annual St. Patrick's Day
parades became a show of strength
for Irish Americans, as well as a
must-attend event for a slew of
political candidates. In 1948,
President Truman attended New York
City 's St. Patrick's Day parade, a
proud moment for the many Irish
whose ancestors had to fight
stereotypes and racial prejudice to
find acceptance in America.
Wearing of the Green
Goes Global
Today, St.
Patrick's Day is celebrated by
people of all backgrounds in the
United States, Canada, and
Australia. Although North America is
home to the largest productions, St.
Patrick's Day has been celebrated in
other locations far from Ireland,
including Japan, Singapore, and
Russia.
In modern-day
Ireland, St. Patrick's Day has
traditionally been a religious
occasion. In fact, up until the
1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs
be closed on March 17. Beginning in
1995, however, the Irish government
began a national campaign to use St.
Patrick's Day as an opportunity to
drive tourism and showcase Ireland
to the rest of the world. Last year,
close to one million people took
part in Ireland 's St. Patrick's
Festival in Dublin, a multi-day
celebration featuring parades,
concerts, outdoor theater
productions, and fireworks shows.
The Chicago River
Chicago
river dyed green
Chicago is also
famous for a somewhat peculiar
annual event: dyeing the Chicago
River green. The tradition started
in 1962, when city pollution-control
workers used dyes to trace illegal
sewage discharges and realized that
the green dye might provide a unique
way to celebrate the holiday. That
year, they released 100 pounds of
green vegetable dye into the
river—enough to keep it green for a
week!
Today, in order
to minimize environmental damage,
only forty pounds of dye are used,
making the river green for only
several hours. Although Chicago
historians claim their city 's idea
for a river of green was original,
some Savannah natives believe the
idea originated in their town.
They point out
that 1961, Savannah mayor Tom
Woolley had plans for a green river,
but due to rough water on March 17,
the experiment didn't work and
Savannah never attempted to dye its
river again.
Afro Ninja: Destiny
