It’s March 17th and for those of us that are Irish and those that wanna be (at least for one day a year) it’s ‘the wearing of the green’ in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
Americans have been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day since the 1850’s. But if you’re knowledge of Irish history only goes as deep as a mug of green beer you might be surprised to learn that in Ireland this holiday is not celebrated as wildly as in the U.S. and that there is not a historic connection between green and St. Patrick.
It is only in modern times that green has become associated with St. Patrick’s Day. Blue, not green, is the color long associated with St. Patrick.
A green shamrock was a symbol that St. Patrick had used to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish and ‘the wearing of the green’ meant to wear a shamrock to display your faith.
It is widely believed that beginning in the mid-1700’s people mistook the phrase to mean wearing green garments and we all know the rest of the story…the wearing of green has become ubiquitous with St. Patrick’s Day.
In fact green has become so strongly attached not just to this holiday but to Ireland many believe that it is the ‘official’ color of the country. While there is no official color two hues of blue, St. Patrick’s Blue and Presidential Blue are widely used by the Government of Ireland.
Presidential Blue is darker than St. Patrick’s Blue and both can be seen the football (soccer) uniforms of Dublin County and the liveries of Aer Lingus. Presidential Blue appears in the Irish Crest and St. Patrick’s Blue can be seen behind the gold bardic harp on on the ancient Irish flag.
So while I’ll still be ‘wearing the green’ today my heart will be ‘true blue’ all the way down to my Irish roots.
PS- I can’t help but wonder if the green really came about when the first creative pub owner tried to make blue beer. Blue food color + yellow beer…oops! Hmm, how can we spin this? Can’t let all that good beer go to waste! ☺
Happy St. Paddy’s Day
