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Hey, it’s St. Paddy’s Day

frau sally benz

Just so you know we haven’t forgotten this is not a Latino blog (sorry y’all, but these things are of interest to me), it’s St. Patrick’s Day! WOOHOO! Apparently this day means you are supposed to drink a lot and wear green and celebrate the Irish.

I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but I’m sure some of you do, so please feel free to continue your celebration in the comments.

And if you need beer desserts for your partay, look no further! I found this post with yummy ideas for combining beer and dessert. That definitely sounds like my kind of party and I hope I don’t need St. Patty’s Paddy’s Day as an excuse for making any of those recipes. (sorry about that Suzy)

Also, I learned today that you are not to wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day because it’s the color of Protestants or something and our pal Patrick was a Catholic. Personally, I don’t own anything orange, but I figured I’d share that tidbit of info and educate the masses. You’re welcome.

25 thoughts on Hey, it’s St. Paddy’s Day

  1. I read this, casually turn my head and see two people on either side of me wearing orange. (I did not know about the orange thing before- but then I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.)

  3. Wait, are you apologizing for talking about Latin@ issues on Feministe? Dude, we need more of that! Keep it up!

    Also, I can say from experience that Guinness ice cream is HEAVENLY. Especially with chocolate covered pretzels crushed and sprinkled on top.

  5. Suzy – THANK YOU!

    Everytime I see people saying “St Patty” I want to go CRAZY!

    Also, the orange thing has little to do with St. Patrick himself – orange is the color of Protestantism, but it became contentious during the Troubles when pro-British militias wore orange and fought against the IRA

  6. St. Paddy’s day reminds me of people shouting “Erin No Bra!” at me, and my mom making cabbage. I love cabbage.

    Also, today is the one day where I’m totally obnoxious about my 1/4 Irish heritage.

  7. My 8th grade teacher was a protestant American who married an Irish Catholic. Every March 17th, they each make a point wearing both colors, orange and green. I think a lot of Northern Irish people specifically DO wear orange on this day, just to make a point. (That point is lost on most Americans, who just like beer).

  9. I’m with Julie! Don’t tone it down, keep it up!

    As for the orange, the way I’d always heard it was closer to the way that BD references it. Something closer to “Catholics wear green, Protestants wear orange” on St. Paddy’s day, but who knows. I heard that back in grade school, I’m only part Irish, and I’m neither Catholic or Protestant!

  10. Orange is the Protestant representative color, but it does not date to the Troubles. It dates to 1688, when William of Orange invaded England (the Glorious Revolution), sending the Catholic king James fleeing to Ireland. James (who fled but did not abdicate, and was then deemed to have abdicated by an English political class anxious to secure a Protestant succession) made a last stand in Ireland, losing at the Battle of the Boyne, and others, in a conflict sometimes called the Willamite War, and fleeing to the Continent with a large number of supporters (The Flight of the Wild Geese) This gave rise to the Anglican-only Protestant Ascendancy, which marginalized both the Catholic Irish and the Presbyterian Ulster Scots (from whom, in part, I am descended.) All of this had implications for Scotland, which I won’t go into because it’s not our day.

    Irish nationalism was not strictly denominational until after the rising of 1798; the United Irishmen was founded in large part by Protestants and fought for an Ireland for the Irish regardless of religion. However, since 1688, William’s origin in the Netherlands province of Orange, which led to his men being called the Orange Men, gave the color Orange a Protestant connotation.

    And so, the green has long been the color of Ireland, and of Irish Catholicism, and Orange has been the color of Protestantism in Britain and wherever the history of national and religious conflict over Ireland has travelled — including Scotland, where orange and green feature, respectively, in the livery colors of the Rangers (historically Protestant) and Celtic (historically Catholic and particularly supported by Irish Scots).

    I don’t wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day. My father used to, not out of malice but mostly to rib his Irish American friends. My grandfather did, because he was an anti-Catholic bigot. I’m no anti-Catholic bigot. What I feel for the Irish Diaspora is fellow-feeling; our peoples both cast across the sea from a Celtic homeland by the military expansion of the big, rich neighbor, by poverty and by circumstance, trying to retain and grow an authentic culture on far shores.

    Have a great St. Patrick’s Day, Irish folks, wherever you may be.

  12. It’s a bit silly to try to place a man who lived a thousand years before the Reformation on one side or the other of the Catholic/Protestant divide. And it’s not like the only people who revere Patrick are members of the Church of Rome.

  13. As a non-Irish non-Catholic, my main confusion about this holiday is how it has managed to be classified as secular and universal, even though it’s neither.

  14. I’m not at all Irish… I’m Mexican, Spanish & Italian but I’ve celebrated St. Patrick’s Day since I was a little girl… And I’ve ALWAYS known it’s Paddy’s Day! 😉

  15. Sailorman, the short answer is that it’s a different holiday for the diaspora than it is in Ireland. And, as a diaspora Scot, I’m all in favor of the diaspora defining their own culture independently of the root culture.

  16. At my (Scottish) school there is one Irish teacher. She came in with a green hat today and apparently brought in whiskey fudge for the teachers.

    I’m kinda half Irish. Kinda, because my dad is Protestant and I have a feeling that according to him I’m half-Northern Irish. Never once has he mentioned St Patrick’s day. I think if he didn’t have to wear a uniform to work he would wear orange to be honest.

  17. A small point people, and just to clear up some misconceptions that I was not aware existed until today when I have read them twice! Btw, this is only a personal perspective and others may have different experiences. Growing up in Ireland the orange / green clothes question was never considered and had never entered my head until today. The idea that – in the north anyway – people would wear orange on St Patricks day is completely bizarre. Can’t comment on the US, so maybe this is where it came from. Equally, while orange is associated with William of Orange and thus (by various steps) Protestants in Ireland, the idea of pro-British militias wearing orange (as a uniform?) is not something I have heard before and did raise a smile. Anyway, happy St Patrick’s day. Feel free to dress as you like. 😉

  18. It’s a bit silly to try to place a man who lived a thousand years before the Reformation on one side or the other of the Catholic/Protestant divide. And it’s not like the only people who revere Patrick are members of the Church of Rome.

    You need to remember that it’s not purely religious: Protestantism and the colour orange are directly associated as the religion and symbol of the occupying oppressors the English. While the colour orange dates back, as has already been explained, to 1688, the association of protestantism with oppression goes back to the establishment of the Church of England during the reign of Elizabeth I roughly a century before.

    Since St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, he is therefore assumed to be on the side of the occupied and oppressed land and its people, not on the side of the oppressors. Thus, green and not orange for St Patrick’s Day.

  20. I’m the grandchild of Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants (with some Scottish and English mixed in), although I was raised culturally Catholic and had no sense of myself being a Protestant growing up. I did know my Gran on my Mom’s side was “Orange,” though, and that meant Protestant/Them. Apparently it was still a bit of a contentious family issue when my parents got married in the late 1940’s (I’m old and my my was old when she had me), even here in Canada, with my Mom converting to Catholicism.

    I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, because I’m ex-Catholic and although I am sure my “claim” to Irishness is sort of valid it still feels weird to me. There is a strange “The Irish = Drunks” subtext to the holiday, and I am not sure if most people celebrating it in North America – self-identified Irish or not – know that history of the Irish as an occupied people and targets of cultural bigotry for being Irish (one of which was that the Irish were shady drunks and criminals).

    Overall, I do find the day a lot like that Onion article, Man Who’s 1/16th Irish Proud Of His Irish Heritage.

  21. “Since St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, he is therefore assumed to be on the side of the occupied and oppressed land and its people, not on the side of the oppressors. Thus, green and not orange for St Patrick’s Day.”

    This interested me, so the people who have also lived in Ireland for centuries and consider themselves to be so aren’t Irish? Because they want to retain their links to a country which has the same religion and live in the country they were born in?

  22. I think your second paragragh refers to the protestant people? In that case in spite of being born in and having lived here for centuries they do not consider themselves to be Irish.

  23. St. Patrick’s day celebrates “when the snakes were driven out of Ireland.” Guess who the “snakes” are. The Druids/Pagans. Guess why I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day even though I’m Irish. Yeah. I’m Pagan.

  24. I’ve always worn black on St. Patrick’s Day b/c I’ve never been thrilled to be raised as Catholic, lol.

  25. Well, I’m mellower than I was when I was younger, and had been known to wear black and tan on this date.

    Mostly, I try to stay true to my heritage with some form of potato, yummy starch that it is, and the inside of my head echoes with memories of signs that said, “No Irish Need Apply”.

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