2018 St. Patrick’s Day Facts
2:40 AMPosted by: John S Kiernan
Make sure to don green and put down your keys if you want to avoid getting pinched come March 17. Despite its religious undertones, St. Patrick’s Day often results in some light bruising for folks whose dress doesn’t express the Emerald Isle’s characteristic hue. It also ranks among the year’s most popular drinking occasions.
Each year, more than 33 million Irish-Americans and fellow partiers worldwide raise pints of Guinness and forkfuls of cabbage in the name of Ireland’s primary patron saint. But the good times are too often ruined by drunk-driving incidents, which can have a devastating impact on lives in general and wallets in particular. So in addition to checking out the interesting St. Patrick’s Day stats and facts presented below, try to keep your celebrations safe this year. The cost of a quick Uber or Lyft ride pales in comparison to that of a DUI, after all.
Besides, St. Patrick’s Day already has the potential to be quite expensive, with lots of corn beef, cabbage, Guinness and green clothing on Americans’ shopping lists. You can learn more about why that’s the case from our Ask the Experts Q&A.
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In search of useful savings suggestions and additional insight into the commercial side of St. Patrick’s Day, we posed the following questions to a group of leading experts. You can find their bios and responses below.
- Why is St. Patrick's Day so popular in the United States?
- What are some social and economic considerations for cities looking to host St. Patrick’s Day celebrations?
- How can local authorities promote safety and reduce alcohol related accidents on St. Patrick’s Day?
Karen Sonnelitter Assistant Professor of History at Siena College
Victor Luftig Professor in the Department of English and Director of the Center for the Liberal Arts at the University of Virginia
Dermot Quinn Professor of History at Seton Hall University and Author of “The Irish in New Jersey: Four Centuries of American Life”
Why is St. Patrick’s Day so popular in the United States?
St. Patrick's Day itself has an interesting history. The historical St. Patrick died in the 5th century, allegedly on March 17th. Since the 9th century, the Irish have celebrated his feast day on March 17th, the day became an official feast day and a legal holiday in Ireland in the early 17th century. There's a description from the 1680s that says that on the 17th of March, the Irish wear crosses in their hats, or green ribbons, and that some wear shamrocks. In the 18th century, Jonathan Swift described people celebrating the holiday by wearing crosses, and the ringing of church bells. There were fraternal societies that organized celebrations and Dublin Castle (the seat of government) hosted a lavish ball. So, the day has been a major holiday in Ireland for centuries, although very different from modern American celebrations.
The earliest St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the United States were in the 18th century -- in Massachusetts in 1737 and New York in 1762. The first recorded U.S. St. Patrick's Day Parade was in 1766 in New York City. These celebrations were put on by Irish soldiers in the British Army stationed in the American colonies.
The mass popularity of the holiday in the U.S. can probably be traced to the 19th century and the wave of Irish immigrant to the United States following the potato famine (1846-51). For those immigrant communities, March 17th was a way to celebrate their culture and heritage. The Irish were a generally despised immigrant community then, and many scholars have concluded that St. Patrick's Day celebrations were a way to assert their cultural and their political presence. Organizations like the Ancient Order of Hibernians played an active role in promoting the holiday and organizing celebrations.
19th century St. Patrick's Day parades contained symbolism that celebrated Ireland and Irish identity such as the Irish flag, then a gold harp on a green backdrop, and women dressed as “Erin,” the symbolic personification of Ireland. They also had American symbols, marchers carried American flags, women dressed as Lady Liberty. So, it’s been argued that these parades help to shape Irish-American identity. Certainly, these marches were very important to Irish-American communities, since they continued to march even in the face of nativist opposition.
Victor Luftig Professor in the Department of English and Director of the Center for the Liberal Arts at the University of Virginia
Why is St. Patrick’s Day so popular in the United States?
Timing and commerce. Seasonal cultures relish spring festivals, ways of shaking free of the hardships of winter, and the space between Christmas and Easter is a long one. Easter doesn’t really license the kind of exuberant (i.e., alcohol-infused) celebration with which New Year’s Eve and the 4th of July split the year in half, so St. Patrick’s Day makes for a useful bridge. It would be worth asking why St. Patrick’s Day rather than Mardi Gras has taken hold nationally (one answer might be that when St. Patrick’s Day found its first foothold in the U.S. in the 18th century, there was not so much association with Catholicism as Mardi Gras would always have had) and why the fall “ethnic” holiday, Columbus Day, hasn’t become as big commercially as St. Patrick’s -- to which I’d propose three answers: Halloween elbowed it out, the NFL is the real American fall harvest celebration, and the current queasiness about celebrating colonial genocide as ethnic affirmation was always built into Columbus Day to some extent, if only because it’s so near to the way Thanksgiving rituals smooth over such histories.
St. Patrick’s certainly gets some bump from where it comes in the American TV sports schedule: the middle rounds of March Madness wouldn’t do enough to get men to bars (in the absence of the NFL and major league baseball, and amidst the tedium of the NBA’s pre-finals moments), but St. Patrick’s provides some ostensibly cultured or cultural oomph.
What are some social and economic considerations for cities looking to host St. Patrick’s Day celebrations?
It is, as a day of parades and drunken festivity, historically much more an American holiday than an Irish one. It oddly purports to celebrate Irishness by foregrounding iconography and stereotypes that have been historically demeaning to Irish people. And its images do very little to connect to the multi-racial, high-tech, politically and financially corrupt Ireland of today, though there is a plainer connection between them and continuing tensions in Northern Ireland.
How can local authorities promote safety and reduce alcohol-related accidents on St. Patrick’s Day?
Indeed, when my wife and I take students to Ireland, as we have done most years in January for some time, I greatly defer to such an expert at my home institution. But under her tutelage we have learned that:
- There is nothing to be gained when trying to reduce alcohol abuse and related dangers among young people, in having institutions and authorities set themselves up as grim opponents to drinking: it’s indeed important that authorities do nothing to provoke people, especially young people, into thinking of drinking as rebellion -- that only makes drinking seem more appealing.
- There is some possibility of mitigating the amount and pace of alcohol consumed by tying drinking to serious cultural activities: not rowdy drinking songs, but seriously played music -- whether it’s glorious 18th century harp music or glorious recordings by contemporary Irish artists -- and readings and the like.
My guess is that a lot of harm is done by the holiday being associated with people starting their drinking earlier, and drinking for longer than they are used to. McSorley's Old Ale House in New York “traditionally” opens at 8:00 a.m. A city really intent on safety would be counter-programming diligently against that, getting the most attractive free acts performing then in another part of town. Ireland’s cultural achievements have been astonishing for a very long time, and one could argue that its peace process in Northern Ireland is the greatest exemplar we have for overcoming cycles of revenge. So, it should be in a certain way the very last place the U.S. should use as an excuse for stupid, dangerous, early spring behavior. The beer companies may be as hard to contend with as the gun and cigarette companies, but the city wanting to associate Ireland with something other than booze has a wonderful palette to turn to.
Dermot Quinn Professor of History at Seton Hall University and Author of “The Irish in New Jersey: Four Centuries of American Life”
Why is St. Patrick’s Day so popular in the United States?
St. Patrick’s Day is enormously popular in the U.S. for many reasons, some obvious, some subtle. In the first place, over 10 percent of the population claims to be partly or wholly of Irish descent. That amounts to about 33 million people. In the second place, the story of the Irish in America is, in some ways, the story of America in miniature. It’s a story, in other words, of struggle followed by success, of trouble followed by triumph. In that way, what seems to be celebrated on March 17 is not so much Ireland or Irish America (important though both may be), but the promise and possibility of America itself.
Other reasons are that the Irish are famed for enjoying a good party and -- not least -- that St. Patrick’s Day comes when people are sick of winter and want a reason to celebrate spring.
What are some social and economic considerations for cities looking to host St. Patrick’s Day celebrations?
The economic benefits of St. Patrick’s Day are huge. In fact, in some places, it would be more accurate to talk of “St. Patrick’s Month.” Think of the parade in New York City. With roughly 150,000 people taking part and upwards of 2 million spectators, you’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars entering the local economy, from meals to drinks, hotel rooms, air fares, and tickets on the PATH from New Jersey to the LIRR from Long Island. Of course, there are associated costs as well -- policing, most obviously -- but these pale in comparison to the benefits. And don’t forget that the police will eventually spend that money, too.
How can local authorities promote safety and reduce alcohol-related accidents on St. Patrick’s Day?
Reducing alcohol-related difficulties on St. Patrick’s Day requires a few things: first, a PR campaign beforehand reminding people that insobriety will ruin the day for oneself and for others; a stress on the family-friendly nature of the day; intelligent and thoughtful policing (i.e., nothing too heavy-handed); and an emphasis on self-policing (“friends don’t let friends drive drunk” -- that sort of thing).
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