What is St. Patrick’s Day About in America?

English Extras Episode #46: What is St. Patrick’s Day About in America?

🌟 Episode Highlights

• who is Saint Patrick
• how we celebrate in America
• a few random pieces of trivia

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Transcript

Hello, hello! Welcome to English Extras! I’m Jean, your guide to making your English sound natural and authentic.

If you are an intermediate or advanced learner, this podcast is for you because I’m here to teach you the way native speakers really say things.

If you want to follow along with today’s episode, I put a link to the transcript in the description for you. It’s full of all kinds of good things to help you take your learning to the next level. And the best part? It’s absolutely free.

Are you ready? Let’s learn some English.

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, friends! 

What you just heard was the typical impression Americans like to do of the Irish. I decided to open this episode with that phrase because yesterday, March 17, was Saint Patrick’s Day and this episode is going to be all about the who, what, when, where, why of Saint Patrick’s Day, and it has everything to do with the Irish. Let’s get into it.

So who–in the world–was Saint Patrick? According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, Patrick was born in Britain in the 4th century. When he was 16, he was kidnapped and taken to Ireland as a slave. He eventually escaped, but then returned to bring Christianity to Ireland and became something of a religious hero. 

So why do we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day in America if all of that happened centuries ago in Ireland? Well, when Irish immigrants arrived in the US, celebrating this day was a way to celebrate national identity and they transformed the holiday into basically a big party. It started in cities like Boston, where there was and still is a large Irish population, but eventually spread to other big cities like New York City and Chicago. 

Nowadays, we celebrate this day by wearing green–which is a color associated with Ireland and Saint Patrick–we go to parades (if your city has one, not all of them do), we drink lots and lots of beer, and have a good time. 

Some cities, like Chicago, take it a step further and actually change the color of their rivers. In Chicago, they dye the river green for Saint Patrick’s Day. You can Google pictures of it; it’s crazy.

I should be clear that these are American-style celebrations. Apparently Ireland has adopted some of these traditions as well, but possibly only to please tourists. I read that Saint Patrick’s Day has different vibes in Ireland, because of the modern history surrounding that day.

If you want to learn more about Irish history, I recommend researching it yourself. I don’t want to try to share it here, because if I misunderstand something, I don’t want to misrepresent it and spread the wrong information, you know? So if you’d like to learn more about Irish history, that’s a great opportunity to use your English to learn something new. Hint, hint.

Returning to traditions–there’s a few more things we do in America to celebrate this holiday. I already talked about turning the rivers green, but it’s also encouraged and expected that you wear green on this day. It might not be for the reason you think. It’s not just about national or cultural identity. It’s said that you should wear green so you will be invisible to leprechauns. 

Leprechauns are devious, troublesome creatures. They’re tricksters, and if they see you, they might pinch you! So, when I was a kid, you had to wear green or else someone might give you a friendly pinch.

There’s also the idea that wearing green will bring you luck. We have the same belief about four-leaf clovers. Clovers are also called shamrocks and even though Saint Patrick apparently used regular three-leaf clovers as part of his religious teachings, people associate four-leaf clovers with him and with luck in general. Probably because it’s harder to find four-leaf clovers, whereas three-leaf clovers are quite common.

Quick little side story: one of my family members looks for four-leaf clovers every time she sees a patch of clovers on the ground–when she’s out walking, for example–and if she finds a four-leaf clover, she buys a lottery ticket. I think she’s won a little bit of money from doing that, but never big money.

Another thing about luck: if you Google pictures of Saint Patrick’s Day, you might find a picture of someone wearing a shirt that says “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” Apparently there’s a legend about kissing the Blarney Stone and it bringing you luck and this grew to a general belief that kissing any Irish person would bring you luck.

Something that happens a lot in America around Saint Patrick’s Day is people suddenly claiming that they have Irish heritage. I’m not calling anyone a liar, but I think claiming heritage can be open to interpretation and I think some people’s interpretation can be a little unreasonable.

Now, something I learned when I was Googling this topic for this episode is there’s a specific food associated with Saint Patrick’s Day. This is new information to me, so I don’t know how popular it really is to eat this food, and maybe it depends on where you are. Maybe it’s more common in places like Boston, for example.

The food is corned beef and cabbage. Apparently this isn’t really a thing in Ireland. So it doesn’t come from there. It’s something Irish immigrants did when they were in the United States. Corned beef was a really cheap, inexpensive meat and cabbage was also really cheap, so it was easy to get a lot of it for celebrations.

I’ve never had corned beef and cabbage myself. I’ve had cabbage and kielbasa! My mom made that a lot for us when we were kids. (I didn’t really like it that much, to be honest.) So I’ve had that, but not corned beef and cabbage.

Speaking for myself, I do not really do anything to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. When I was a kid, I would wear green. (I did decide to wear green for this episode.) In high school, I remember I had a t-shirt that said, “Everyone loves an Irish girl,” even though I don’t think I have any Irish heritage. If I do, that would be news to me! And I don’t party.

So many people party for Saint Patrick’s Day, including drinking lots and lots of beer. I don’t like to party–I’m a very boring person by average standards–and I don’t like the taste of alcohol–any kind of alcohol, so I don’t get drunk. So for me, in general, Saint Patrick’s Day is a day. 

But if you’re interested in celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, I recommend starting with wearing something green and grabbing your favorite beer. I’m sure someone will say it has to be a specific kind of beer, like specifically Irish beer, but as someone who doesn’t drink beer, I think any beer would be fine.

That’s all I have for you today, friends. As always, thank you for being here.

Until next time!

Bye!