10 Little Known Facts About St. Patrick’s Day

Today the whole of Ireland and most of the rest of the world celebrates St. Patrick’s Day – a day when everyone is Irish. To mark the occasion we’ve put together a short list of 10 less know facts about St. Patrick and the celebrations on the day.

1. Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland and the one credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland.

2. Saint Patrick was actually not born in Ireland, but in either Wales or Scotland and was taken to Ireland by slavers.

3. St. Patrick’s mother tongue was Latin not Gaelic.

4. Oh well, we will claim him as Irish anyway!

5. St. Patrick was originally associated with the colour blue, which was also considered symbolic of Ireland for many centuries before it turned to green.

6. The first recorded St. Patrick’s Day Parade took place in Boston in the early 1700s

7. Today the top 3 St .Patrick’s day parades are all in the USA: New York, Boston and Chicago

8. In Chicago every year they dye the river ‘Kelly’ Green

9. Traditionally, every year, the leader of Ireland hands the President of the US a bowl of shamrock but it is always immediately destroyed by the Secret Service!

10. Guinness sales double on St. Patrick’s Day reaching approximately 13 million pints. In recent years beer sales on St. Patrick’s Day have reached approximately €221 million euros!

We are delighted to be joining the celebrations for our Patron Saint, Saint Patrick
– see what’s on at ely this week here.