St. Patrick's Day is one of those parties that we barely knew about for a few years and that are beginning to become unavoidable in our calendar. It can be said that, without resembling, it is the other Halloween (exported or imported) to the whole world, and in which year after year the green color stars in endless recreational activities that place on the map a small country with roots and descendants spread over the five continents.
As every March 17, at the gates of the southern autumn and spring in the northern hemisphere, St. Patrick makes out to the street millions of people celebrating the Christian missionary and his clover symbol dressed in green, disguised as goblins and with great parades and an exorbitant consumption of beer.
This custom of celebrating in the street the commemoration of the death of the patron of Ireland was not always so, but the popular celebration has prevailed over the religious and has spread throughout the world, and we know that when a party, whether religious or pagan, begins to be held in schools almost automatically acquires the category of tradition.
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For the Irish it is the day of the homeland, of unity and national pride with a marked religious sense, but for the rest of the world it is a happy celebration with enough ingredients to live on the street and join the green tide of jackets, caps and shamrocks.
The celebration of Saint Patrick's Day is marked by the confusion that continues to exist regarding the details of the life of the Christian saint, but there is enough consensus to honor Maewyn Succat, who was his name, born in 387 in Beenhaven Taberniae, Roman province of Britannia and present Scotland, and son of Calpurnius, a Christian deacon who also had an important civil office.
Irish tradition and legend have it that Patrick was kidnapped by pirates when he was still a 16-year-old teenager and was transferred to Ireland.
For six years he worked as a pastor and was sold as a slave, although he managed to escape and arrived in France. However, he felt a divine call within him and returned with his family to Ireland, the place where he had been subjected, to transform their captors and away from evil.
From that moment, Patricio's life changed thanks to the purpose of taking Christianity with him, becoming a priest and becoming a Christian missionary. In Ireland, an area where Christianity had already begun to be established, Patricio managed to expand it much more quickly and more effectively by discarding the pagan beliefs of the local inhabitants.
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Patricio adapted very well to the social conditions of the place, formed a local clergy and several Christian communities, went on a pilgrimage to the island preaching the Catholic religion and building churches. It acquired such popularity that legend has it that the cathedral of Dublin rises over the place where there was a well that the saint used to baptize those who converted to Catholicism. The tradition also attributed the miracle of driving away the snakes of Ireland and related to the symbol of the clover, because it is what the future saint used to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity: God is one, the clover, but trine at once, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Patrick died in 461 and was buried in Saul (Stragford Lough), the place where he is believed to have built his first church. Since then he is known as the apostle of Ireland. When the country realized the potential of its patron to build its image as a nation, any element, symbolic as it was, became representative of the Saint Patrick's Day party. Hence the shamrocks, the green color and the snakes. The other indispensable element in any celebration in Ireland is beer. Its use comes by the exception that the Catholic Church made with the children so that they could take sweets this day in spite of being in Lent, so the homologation of this bull in the adults translates into the permission to consume beer.
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In Ireland, also known as 'the emerald country', the celebrations in honor of St. Patrick last four days. Dublin, its capital, dresses in green and the streets are flooded with music and dances, turning the thematic three-kilometer parade through its streets into a tourist attraction for thousands of visitors who travel these days to participate in it. His allegorical carriages and clothing are two key points of his success, since they can not miss the costumes of goblin as a symbol of luck and abundance, and carry a clover.
Another element that plays an important role in the celebration is the 'céilidh', a traditional Irish dance in which up to 16 people can participate and with fun competitions that last for hours. In them, the bagpipes with Celtic rhythms can not miss either.
And, of course, the drink and the food occupy a prominent place in the celebration: lamb, potato bread, cabbage and a lot of beer - stout variety, although in recent years you can also get green, are some of the foods that can not miss in the celebration of St. Patrick.
In fact, it was from the eighteenth century, and thanks to the United States, when this religious festival began to become the great popular celebration that we know today and that continues to cross borders every year. In cities like Boston and New York the Irish immigrants began to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in the streets with a parade from 1760 and, as more Irish came to the country, more people joined the party.
On March 17, 1762, a group of Irish soldiers enlisted in the British Army began to parade through the streets of New York, which was still a colonial territory, and established a tradition that still survives. From 1903, in addition, a law in Ireland turned the day of San Patricio into a public celebration and, for that reason, the diaspora of Irish by the world has infected its celebration by the five continents.
In fact, the largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the world is not held in Ireland, but in New York, where more than two million people participate every year. Another curious celebration takes place in Chicago, where the river dyes green for a few hours due to the ecological vegetable paint thrown into it.
But St. Patrick's Day is also commemorated in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, Spain ... with numerous celebrations, cultural and leisure activities on the street and in traditional pubs. In addition, representative monuments and iconic enclaves around the world will also return this year to light up the emerald green of Ireland to commemorate the feast of St. Patrick.
