Today was the first St. Patrick's Day in some time where I remembered to wear something green. A cardigan that usually only comes out on the weekend. A handful of people at the office I'm working at did the same. Mostly women, but not all.
It's an unusual custom, if fun. There are, if I'm not mistaken, more saints than there are days in the year. For the majority of them we don't dress any special way.
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We're a little too far away from Boston or New York to take much notice these days but I always exchange St. Patrick's Day greetings with our old friends Geraldine and Alan who live in Cork.
That the day became a big deal in the US in particular is very much due to the fact the saint has been celebrated in Ireland for a thousand years - including a day of being able to ignore the prohibitions of Lent. When Irish Catholics fled the Potato Famine they brought the tradition with them - and all the fun, drinking, and music too. Now the NY event is the world‘s oldest and largest civilian parade.
Down here we might be just close enough to Boston to be in its St. Patty's Day aura. Cork looks to be a bright and colorful city from the pictures I've seen of it. It also has a well known butter museum, which is hard to beat.
The timing of the holiday does make it a break from the restrictions of Lent. St. Joseph's Day, associated with Italy, can be like that as well, although it's not as big in the secular world. There's a noticeable pattern for Old World traditions. If they make it to the US especially and continue a while, they tend to get bigger. Crossover appeal, I guess you could call it.
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