March 17th, 2023

Happy St Patrick's Day Ya'll!

These were my only two choices for wearing something green today.  Lime and Olive.  Not really the colours I associate with Ireland.  They are neither Shamrock Green nor green of a leprechauns hat. Of course the only Leprechaun I can think of just now is the one on the Lucky Charms cereal box and I'm pretty sure that's not historically accurate.

The actual original St Patrick's Day - not necessarily the Americanized version of it - began in Ireland (of course) over a thousand years ago!  According to my, admittedly not in depth, research, it was in honour of the actual St Patrick and celebrated by taking a little  break in the lenten abstention from meat.  People would go to church in the morning and then celebrate with good food, drink, music and dance for the rest of the day.

The very first St Patrick's Day parade was held in America, by the way, in 1601 in St Augustine Florida!  Whoa!  That was new information for me!  Even though St Augustine was a Spanish settlement, their vicar was Irish so the parade probably was his idea.  

My assumption, which was completely wrong, was that the first St Patrick's Day parade was in New York City.  I was already aware that in 1772, Irish Soldiers serving in the English military and feeling quite homesick marched down the streets of NYC to honour their patron saint.  But I was off by more than a hundred years!  Wow, when I'm wrong, I am wildly wrong.

The enormously popular New York City St Patrick's Day parade that most of us associate with the wearin' o' the green nowadays actually started in 1848 when the various Irish Aid Societies collaborated and gathered all the parades from all of the different boroughs of New York to hold one huge Official St Patrick's Day Parade.  It  is now the worlds oldest civilian parade and the largest with over 150,000 participants and more than 3 millions onlookers!  

These days of course, you don't have to be Irish to participate. As the contemporary saying goes, "Everyone is Irish on St Patrick's Day".    Since part of my heritage actually is Irish, I should definitely celebrate.  So I am sitting here in my light green house, wearing my olive green shirt, drinking about of my bright green mug and thinking green thoughts.  I think that'll do!


Have a wonderful weekend everybody and hugs all 'round.