Saint Patrick’s Day
By Louise Borges-Hansen and Maiken Hollænder Larsen
Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated worldwide and appears without doubt as one of our favorite days of the year! It is a day of joy where people enjoy Irish food and a cold pint of beer at the local pub. However, on this 17th of March where drunken people dressed in green, clovers and leprechauns overtake cities around the world, one might ask if people have forgotten what this day in reality is all about or if this holiday is still a way of celebrating the Irish culture, even if it is just the drunk culture. One thing is certain, that the backgrounds for holidays change and evolve over time, even mixing different religions and cultures.
On St Patrick’s Day people celebrate one of Ireland’s patron saints, who ministered Christianity in Ireland during the fifth century (Staff, 2018). In Ireland and Northern Ireland it is a bank holiday and a festive celebration where the Irish appreciate food and culture expressed through big parades held in public areas. However, on a global scale it has to be questioned how many of the people dressed in green from top to toe in reality acknowledge the culture behind this day and instead use this festive holiday as an excuse for fun and drinking. It has been widely debated whether this “holiday”, which originally was promoted by activists in order to fight prejudice against Irish immigrants by celebrating Irish culture in reality is completely cultural ignorant?
However, how many holidays are in reality acknowledging the true reason for celebration? Just take Christmas as an example; a day where you are supposed to celebrate the birth of Christ is now all about giving expensive gifts to everyone. Although the gift giving came from Saint Nicholas, he was a bishop that used to give gifts for the ones who needed, and became what we now know as Santa Claus.
Prior to the Christianization of Ireland, the country followed the Celtic polytheism. They had numerous deities, symbols and cultic practices. Some of those ended up being merged and forming a Celtic Christianity, one of the religious beliefs in Ireland, especially after the fifth century, with Saint Patrick. He was a Catholic bishop that is now worshipped as the patron of Ireland and responsible for spreading the Catholic belief in Ireland (Staff, 2009). It is believed that one of the things he used to teach people about the holy trinity was the three-leafed clover, also known as the shamrock (Roach, 2010). One example of a Celtic symbol that was used for the same representation of the Trinity in Christianity was the Triquetra, or the trinity knot.
As Saint Patrick’s Day takes place during Lent, both Catholic holidays, it is interesting to see how a day created to celebrate a saint became a day to celebrate drinking, being Irish and wearing green. So we went out to ask people on the streets of Copenhagen how they were going to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, with a hidden agenda: we wanted to understand if anyone felt guilty of this lack of cultural appropriation associated with this “holiday”. We could see that most of the people present did not know who exactly Saint Patrick was, only that he is the patron of Ireland. Their intent in going out to celebrate was only to have fun with their friends, and not exactly celebrating a Christian saint, nor Ireland for that matter. After this we could see that the reason for celebrating holidays changes over time and as Saint Patrick’s day becomes not just national but global, and now it does not have that much to do with religion any more.
References:
Staff, IrishCentral (2018). “Are Americans guilty of cultural appropriation on Saint Patrick’s Day?” [Online] https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cultural-appropriation-saint-patricks-day (accessed 19/03/18)
Staff, History.com (2009) “History of St. Patrick’s Day” [Online] https://www.history.com/topics/st-patricks-day/history-of-st-patricks-day (accessed 20/03/18)
ROACH, John (2010) “St. Patrick’s Day Facts: Shamrocks, Snakes, and a Saint” [Online] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100316-st-patricks-day-facts-shamrocks/ (accessed 20/03/18)