looking at the modern meaning of this holiday.
“It’s Saint Pattie’s day, everyone’s Irish tonight. Why don’t you pull up a stool and have a drink with us.” ~Boondock Saints.
The Saint Patrick’s Day holiday has been a popular celebration for decades that celebrated everything that had anything to do with Ireland. According to a 2004 US Census, 34.3 million people claim Irish ancestry, that’s nine times the population of Ireland itself.
Though its roots may have been in the catholic religion it has certainly moved away from it. Popular ways of celebrating the holiday are to drink beer (sometimes dyed green), enjoy parades and wear green. American’s consume 22 gallons of beer per capita during this holiday. Today the holiday is more of a means for people to get together to celebrate a culture.
Though many people may see this day as just another excuse to drink excessively, it’s a unifier. Even though a person may not be of Irish decent they are still welcomed to celebrate in this holiday. St. Patrick may have been a saint who drove out some mythological snakes from an island but the ultimate message of this holiday has become one of comradary. As with the quote above, it doesn’t matter what your ethnicity is, you can join in with others, share a beer and enjoy life.
Our holidays, traditions and folklore evolve overtime. This holiday may have started out as a religious remembrance of a patron saint. Though the saintly undertones of this day have nearly died out it is still a way for people to come together and celebrate an oncoming spring through friendship. There are many holidays in the united states that celebrate various ethnic groups (such as St. Joseph’s day or cinco de mayo) however, none of them hold the mass appeal that St. Patrick’s day does. Perhaps it is because it has held such a mass appeal or because it is a holiday that celebrates an ethnic group that is so prevalent within the US. Either way, this holiday has found a niche within our society.
