Saint Patrick's Day

On March 17th people all over the world celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. It is the date when he is supposed to have died in Downpatrick, Ireland.
We know he was born English, captured by Irish pirates who made him a slave, later he became a bishop and converted Ireland into Christianity using the shamrock as the symbol of Trinity. 
There are lots of legends attributed to him such as he banned the snakes from Ireland (snakes were a pagan symbol of druids really). 
I don't want to bore you with history, if you are interested in knowing more about it you can click in this link: History of Saint Patrick
The Day started to be celebrated with parades in New York city 10 years after US Independence from the British in 1776.
Today I just want to comment some symbols related to this Festival. 

THE SHAMROCK ( Seamroy for the Celts) 
As I said before, this clover is associated to Saint Patrick and therefore to Ireland, because the Saint used it to explain the mystery of  Trinity to pagan people ( three in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit) , later it became a symbol of nationalism.

GREEN 

 Green is a colour associated to Saint Patrick's Day. People wear green, dye rivers in green (Chicago)  etc, but at the beginnig the colour for that that day was blue. In the 18th century green became more popular because of different reasons: the clovers which are green, Ireland was called the "Emerald Island" because it's so green, green was the colour representing the catholics in their flag and Leprechauns can't pintch you if you wear green. 

IRISH MUSIC

 Irish music is played in Irish pubs all over the world.  Irish People are very musical, they like singing, dancing and playing music. Music represents their ancient traditions (The Celts had an important oral tradition and used songs and music to tell stories and culture) Celtic music and language were forbidden by the English. 
Nowadays there are important Irish bands (The Chieftains) who try to bring to live the old tunes and instruments such as  the fiddle, the uilleann pipes (a sort of elaborate bagpipe), the tin whistle (a sort of flute that is actually made of nickel-silver, brass or aluminum) and the bodhran (an ancient type of framedrum that was traditionally used in warfare rather than music).
Other famous Irish bands are U2, The Corrs, Sinead O'Connor etc.

THE LEPRECHAUN ( Lobaircin for the Celts) 

It comes from an ancient Celtic belief about tiny men, good or bad, with magical powers. Leprechauns were crazy fellows, whose task was mending the shoes of the fairies. Leprechauns are known to be treacherous and tricky specially when it comes to protect their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

CABBAGE AND CORNED BEEF

Irish main diet was based on potatoes and all kind of stews but there is one which has become famous mainly among Irish inmigrants to USA. It includes potatoes, carrots, beef and cabbage. If you have it with a pint of Guinness, better. 

  More recipes here

ENJOY THE DAY!