Thursday 17 March 2011

St Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day is seen as a celebration of all things Irish and  'the wearing of the green' a symbol of national pride.

The Feast of St Patrick has been celebrated by the Irish since the 10th Century. In the early 1600s, St Patrick's Day became a Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland.

Fables about Patrick ridding Ireland of snakes or his use of the shamrock to explain the Trinity, still endure as part of modern St Patrick's Day folklore and custom.

In the mid-1990s the Irish government began a campaign to use Saint Patrick's Day to showcase Ireland and its culture - to  project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal, as we approach the new millennium.