The post that was quoted here has been removedSaint Patrick (Latin: Sanctus Patricius, Irish: Naomh Pádraig) was a Romanized-Celt, a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognised patron saint of Ireland. Two authentic letters from him survive, from which come the only universally accepted details of his life. When he was about 16 he was captured from Britain by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked.
By the eighth century he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish. Most available details of his life are from later hagiographies from the seventh century onwards, and these are not now accepted without detailed criticism. Uncritical acceptance of the Annals of Ulster would imply that he lived from 340 to 440, and ministered in what is modern day Northern Ireland from 428 onwards. The dates of Patrick's life cannot be fixed with certainty, but on a widespread interpretation he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the second half of the fifth century.
Saint Patrick's Day (17 March) is celebrated both in and outside of Ireland, as both a liturgical and non-liturgical holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland it is a both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation and outside of Ireland, it can be a celebration of Ireland itself. ~wiki
I think it’s great that this forum has such international opinions. I don’t like wasting time putting others down, and on the most part, people just have fun here or at least are trying to be funny. But here’s a serious post.
My perspective of St. Patrick’s day as an American, which started when we were children, you had to wear green to school, one set of my grandparents were from Ireland, so it was easy for me. I seem to remember boys getting beat up if they didn’t have green on, no matter what their nationality was. I went to a Catholic grade school, but I don’t think St Patricks’ was ever a holy day in the US.
My perspective as a working musician was having fun putting chords or harmony to the Irish instrumental (reels & jigs) melodies that a flute player friend had researched and copied from the library from transcriptions from the 1800’s. So we played a few Irish gigs in the past fifteen years building on the song list a little each year.
Singing some of these tunes and getting really emotional responses, had more to do with how the music and the holiday of St. Patricks Day influences me today.
It seemed most of the lyrics of the older tunes, not the American-Irish stuff, had to do with war with England and people dying for wearing green, or getting sent to prison (Van Damien’s Land- Australia) for stealing food, woman and children getting hung in the English Square for Sunday fun. Just a lot of people suffering. How many parts of the world can see the same thing still today? That’s the sad, emotional outrage that comes through the lyrics.
The happy go lucky instrumental jigs and reels tends to offset all of that, and here in the US, I think people equate the holiday with achieving success, as the Irish people overcame tyranny. They toast to the old country, and the ancestors, and the family.