On 17 March, the Irish people as well as many others around the globe celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day – a religious as well as cultural festival to commemorate the death of Ireland’s foremost saint and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. According to the legend, which has captivated the world, Saint Patrick, a 5th-century Romano-British shepherd, was told by God in a vision to spread the message of Christianity in Ireland.
The Irish in Europe started to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day as a kind of national day in the 9th and 10th centuries, even though he only became widely seen as Ireland’s patron saint later in time. Nowadays, this festival is celebrated not only in the UK, but also in Canada, the US, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, making it the most celebrated national festival worldwide. On 17 March, it is customary to hold public parades, organise Irish céilithe (traditional music events), dress in green and wear accessories featuring iconic symbols like the harp, the leprechaun and the shamrock. The latter is said to have been used by Saint Patrick to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish.
In recent years, the days and weeks leading up to Saint Patrick’s Day have also been used to celebrate the Irish language, also known as Gaelic or Gaeilge, and to promote its usage. To this end, the annual international festival of Seachtain na Gaeilge (“Irish language week”, 1 March to 17 March) is held in Ireland, reaching over 1 million people on all 5 continents each year. If you want to join the celebration virtually and train your language skills, we invite you to take a look at the Speech Repository’s Gaelic language section!