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Happy Saint Patrick’s Day from Pump Products!

It’s a holiday of rousing public spectacles, heavy drinking and heavy accents. There’s a lot of green. It inspired a classic Simpsons episode. This is a holiday that provides a delightful mix of low culture and high religion and it has an absolutely fascinating history.

Saint Patrick the Man

The holiday celebrates Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland and one of the most influential and celebrated figures in the Irish Catholic canon. Patrick himself was a Roman-British missionary who evangelized for the Church throughout the Emerald Isle. In popular memory, Patrick is the one who effectively ended the dominance of pagan Celtic polytheism, as steered by the Druids.

Legends also claim that Patrick used the three-leaved shamrock to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to the Irish people. Thus the shamrock’s strong association with Irish culture in general and Saint Patrick’s Day in particular.

Celebrations, Both Native and Not 

It didn’t take long after Patrick’s death for various celebrations of his life to spring up throughout Ireland and Europe. The Church added Patrick’s feast day to the liturgical calendar in the 1600s and it was celebrated largely in the manner of traditional feast days.

The modern iteration of the day – the parades, public displays and the primacy of alcohol – actually stems from the celebrations of the Irish diaspora, specifically the Irish of North America. For those immigrants, the day became as much about Irish identity, character and memories of “home” as much as Saint Patrick himself. In a neat bit of recursive cultural adaptation, the style and form of those large public celebrations started filtering back to Ireland in the early 20th century.

Today, parades, public drinking and a general party atmosphere are the norm for Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations around the globe.

Did You Know?

One of the first things children learn about St. Paddy’s Day is that wearing green is pretty much a requirement. But for a short period, blue was associated with the holiday because the Order of St. Patrick had adopted blue as the primary color on the organization’s emblems, clothes, etc. When green became strongly associated with Irish nationalism, so too did St Patrick’s Day.

Bonus

For your edification and enjoyment, here’s a list of really Irish sounding names:

Lochlann McDonald
Patrick McLaughlin
Seamus McRaney
Niamh Cloughley
Kelly O’Reilly
Ciaran Hinds
Saoirse Ronan
Billy Collins
Jack McMahon
Sinead Kilkenny
Alex O’Rodriguez
Domhnall Gleeson