Every March 17, the United States becomes an emerald country for one day. Americans wear green clothes and drink green beer. Green milkshakes, bagels and oatmeal appear on menus. In a leprechaun-worthy scheme, Chicago even dyes its river green.
Partygoers coast to coast celebrate all things Irish as they raise pints of Guinness and cheer as pipers, step dancers and marching bands march through the city streets. These familiar annual traditions were not, however, imported from Ireland. They were made in America.
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A St. Patrick’s Day Parade, circa 1860s.
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Unlike celebrations in the United States, March 17 was more a holy day than a public holiday in Ireland. Since 1631, St. Patrick’s Day has been a religious holiday to commemorate the 5th-century death anniversary of the missionary credited with spreading Christianity to Ireland. For several centuries, March 17 has been a day of solemnity in Ireland, with Catholics attending church in the morning and taking part in modest feasts in the afternoon. There were no parades and certainly no emerald-tinged food items, especially since blue, not green, was the traditional color associated with Ireland’s patron saint before the Irish Rebellion of 1798 .
Boston has long claimed the first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the American colonies. On March 17, 1737, more than two dozen Presbyterians who emigrated from northern Ireland came together to honor Saint Patrick and form the Charitable Irish Society to help distressed Irish people in the city. The oldest Irish organization in North America still hosts an annual dinner each St. Patrick’s Day.
Historian Michael Francis, however, has unearthed evidence that St. Augustine, Florida may have hosted America’s first St. Patrick’s Day celebration. While researching the records of Spanish gunpowder expenditures, Francis found records indicating that cannon shots or gunshots were used to honor the saint in 1600 and that residents of the Spanish garrison town walked the streets in honor of Saint Patrick the following year, perhaps by request. of an Irish priest who lived there.
Ironically, it was a group of Redcoats who started the green tradition of America’s largest and longest St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1762, when soldiers of Irish descent serving in the British Army marched in lower Manhattan for a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast at a local. tavern. March 17 parades by the Irish in the streets of New York have angered nativist and anti-Catholic crowds who have started their own tradition of “paddy-making” on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day by erecting effigies of Irishmen wearing rags. and potato necklaces with bottles of whiskey in their hands until the practice was banned in 1803.
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After Irish Catholics poured into the country in the decade after Ireland’s failed potato harvest in 1845, they clung to their Irish identity and took to the streets in parades Patrick’s Day to show strength in numbers as a political retort to the nativist “Know-Nothing.
“Many of those who were forced to leave Ireland during the Great Hunger brought a lot of memories, but they didn’t have their country, so it was a celebration of being Irish,” says national historian Mike McCormack. of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. “But there was also a bit of a challenge because of the Know-Nothings bigotry against them.”
McCormack says attitudes towards the Irish began to soften after tens of thousands of them served in the Civil War. “They left as second-class citizens but came back as heroes,” he said. As the Irish slowly assimilated into American culture, those without Celtic blood began to join in the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
The meal that became a St. Patrick’s Day staple across the country — corned beef and cabbage — was also an American innovation. While ham and cabbage were eaten in Ireland, corned beef proved a cheaper substitute for poor immigrants. McCormack says corned beef became a staple for Irish-Americans living in the lower Manhattan slums who bought leftover provisions from ships returning from the tea trade to China.
“When ships arrived at South Street Seaport, many women would rush to port hoping there was leftover corned beef they could get from the ship’s cook for a penny a pound,” McCormack says. “It was the cheapest meat they could find.” The Irish would boil the beef three times – the last time with cabbage – to remove some of the brine.
While St. Patrick’s Day evolved in the 20th century to become a holiday for Americans of all ethnicities, the celebration in Ireland has remained solemn. the Connaught Telegraph reported from Ireland’s commemorations on March 17, 1952: “St. Patrick’s Day was much like any other day, only duller.” For decades, Irish laws prohibited pubs from opening on holy days like March 17. Until 1961, the only legal place to have a drink in the Irish capital on St. Patrick’s Day was the Royal Dublin Dog Show, which naturally attracted those with only a passing canine interest.
The party atmosphere only spread to Ireland after the arrival of television, when the Irish could see all the fun they were having across the ocean. “Modern Ireland was inspired by America,” says McCormack. The multi-day St. Patrick’s Day festival, launched in Dublin in 1996, now attracts a million people each year.
The Irish are now embracing Irish American St. Patrick’s Day traditions, like corned beef and cabbage, McCormack says. However, some American traditions might not catch on in Ireland, such as green Guinness. As McCormack says, “St. Patrick has never had a green beer.”
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