St. Patrick's Day Is Not What You Think It is (Swear and Shake, Moonbeard, asdfmovie6) [Daily Bloggity Entry #24]

Date: 17 March 2014
Time: 12:38 AM ET
Mood: Mellowed out

Ah, St. Patrick's day: the one day of the year where, in America at least, we paint the town green and use it as an excuse to get drunk off of our arses. Parades are held with floats decked out in four leaf clovers, and more importantly to just get super drunk...wait I said that already, I mean celebrate the Irish culture. However, St. Patrick's day was not always like this. Surprisingly, today's St. Patty's day has very little to do with the original meaning behind it.

Daily Music - "These White Walls" by Swear and Shake

To start off, St. Patrick, the man behind the day, isn't actually Irish; he was actually born in Britain, and was later sold into slavery in Ireland when he was capture by Irish pagans. However, it was because of his actions in Ireland that makes him such a revered hero and eventually a day being named after him. When he escaped from slavery with his family, he didn't leave with a bitter feeling for the country, but rather enjoyed the Irish spirit; he vowed to come back, which he later did in life. Through his studies, he would eventually become a priest and then a bishop under the Catholic faith. With his new power, Patrick traveled throughout Ireland and slowly but steadily converted the populous from the old religion of the time to Christianity. Thus, because of his missionary work in Ireland by making Christianity the major religion in Ireland (where it is now the religion of 84% of the nation's popuation), he was named the Patron Saint of Ireland and a day was created in his name, making March 17th St. Patrick's Day.

Daily Comic - "BBQ" by James Squires of Moonbeard.

Now that's just some of the background behind why we have the name "St. Patrick's Day." So what about the other stuff? Why is the three-leaf clover and leprechauns so prominent behind this holiday? First off, the three-leaf clover was actually a tool used by St. Patrick to explain the Holy Trinity. Each piece of the clover represented the three parts of this religious entity: the Father, the son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit, which together describes how God is three divine persons. Leprechauns were actually part of a pagan folklore where these fairies called "lobaircin," or "small-boided fellows" would trick you with their magical powers if you trespassed on very sacred places. On their down time, they would make shoes and store their coins in pots of gold. Even though the surging Christianity movement eliminated the old religion of Ireland, this old pagan belief survived the ordeal and thus has been modernized into a funny, gimmicky Irish celebrity. A lot of the features of the St. Patrick's day lepeachaun - the big nose, fists up, long coat - were actually taken from cartoons that were used to belittle the Irish in the olden days of America.

Daily Video - "asdfmovie6" by animator Tom Ska

And to be perfectly frank, St. Patrick's Day wasn't even that big of a deal in Ireland until America changed the outlook on it. Between 1903 and 1970, St. Patrick's day by law was actually considered a religious holiday, and thus pubs were actually closed on this day. It wasn't until 1970 that Ireland decided to revoke that law, as they saw that the surging popularity of it in America brought a lot of tourism to their country. In America in densely Irish populated cities like Philadelphia and Boston, St. Patrick's day was turned into more of a day to celebrate Irish heritage than a religious holiday, and thus the first parade was held in 1762.

While we would love to think that St. Patrick's Day is just an excuse to get totally wasted, there is actually a lot of deep history to this celebratory day and a lot of change to it over the years. But their you have it! How do you celebrate St. Patrick's day? Are you Irish? How have the leprechauns tricked you out of your money? Comment below as I'd love to hear what you have to say on the matter!

‡ As always, the "Daily Bloggity" is self written by myself and includes just some of my opinions on different mediums. If you have a subject that you might want me to touch on, feel free to PM me or comment below! I would love to hear some of your ideas! Tune in tomorrow at 5PM Eastern Time for the next edition of the "Daily Bloggity!" Cheers! ‡

- elheroeoscuro