St Patrick's Day

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The World's Paddy
St. Patrick's Day, an American holiday.

Friday, March 17, 2006 12:01 a.m.

On this St. Patrick's Day, we'd like to turn your attention for a moment from all the shamrocks and leprechauns and "Kiss Me I'm Irish" buttons to this curious fact: Today's honoree was actually born in Scotland, and historians believe that he spent as much of his life off the Emerald Isle as he did on it. Rankling as such a fact may be to the fiercest of Irish patriots, it's actually fitting, since his holiday has become more an Irish import than an export.

Two million people will watch or participate in the New York City parade alone, while all but two Irish cabinet ministers this year are leaving their country to attend celebrations elsewhere. How did this happen?

St. Patrick's Day began as a religious observance to commemorate the death in the fifth century of Ireland's patron saint. Because March 17 falls during Lent, the Catholic Church in Ireland has traditionally allowed parishioners a one-day reprieve from their fast.

The holiday didn't get its reputation for revelry until centuries later, and that happened in America, not Ireland. What is believed to have been the first St. Patrick's Day parade was staged, some accounts say, by Irish soldiers serving in the British army in New York City in 1762. The American Irish Historical Society claims that the parade has been held in New York every year since, although we're not sure who has been keeping count.

As more Irish moved to America, particularly after the 1845 potato famine, the holiday became a way for them to band together, celebrate their heritage and thumb their noses at those older settlers who looked down on their Irish ways. The leprechaun, traditionally an evil sprite in Irish lore, didn't become associated with the holiday until Disney's 1959 film "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" gave him a friendlier persona.

Back home in Ireland, however, the holiday stayed a muted affair. While merrymakers downed pints of Guinness and shots of whiskey at the ubiquitous Irish bars the world over, the pubs in Ireland itself weren't even allowed to be open on St. Patrick's Day until the 1970s. A National Public Radio crew in the early '80s called a bartender for a "live report" from St. Paddy's Day central, only to find that the mystified Dubliner didn't know there was supposed to be a party going on.

It is not surprising that the tradition took off in America. Living in a great melting pot sometimes inclines us to distinguish ourselves through various cultural traditions. And if the traditions are fun--like the Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras or the Feast of San Gennaro--our countrymen might participate too. Irish-Americans, like other hyphenated Americans, are so attached to their heritage that they have actively spread it all the way back to their ancestral home.

By 1995, the Irish government realized that it was missing out on a chance to cash in on this holiday bonanza and established a St. Patrick's Festival in Dublin. In the decade since, attendance at the four-day event has more than tripled to some 1.2 million people.

These days it's popular in some quarters to warn that globalization is making the world more homogeneous. But stories like that of St. Patrick's Day are the other side of the cultural-imperialism coin. Rather than promoting uniformity, Americans have helped to create a more colorful world. In this case, a greener one.

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