Most people take St. Patrick’s Day, as a day to get drunk and go out and party for the whole night. People also wear green hats, scarves, and dress up as Leprechans to celebrate this day, but how many of these people even know why St. Patrick’s Day is important? My family, both my dad and my mom are from Ireland, and for as long as I can rember we have made a big deal out of this day, and as my mother tells me every year, “You don’t have to wear ‘green’ to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.”
As I got older I finely asked the question, “Why do all these people dress up, and go out drinking on St. Patrick’s day?” I was not ready for how long my grandmother’s answer would be. She first told me that it really wasn’t that big of a deal untill 1903 when it became a national holiday for Ireland, meaning that all the pubs would be closed as a sign of respect for St. Patrick chasing the snakes out of Ireland. St. Patrick’s Day was the day that he was believed to have died.
“But why do we celebrate it?” I asked again, and this time I got an answer. The reason that my family makes a big deal about is that my family are Irish Catholic. So on the 17th of March we have a big family dinner, which is an important because the day of a saint’s death become their feast day. On this day my grandmother makes a full Irish meal: cornbeef and cabbage, with roasted carrots and sometimes if we are lucky she bakes a meat pie.
Now I know that to most people St. Patrick’s Day is just a day “That’s good to be Irish” but what many people over look is why the “wearing of the green” is so important. There was a time during Irish history that England was pretty much in control of all of Ireland. Banning things like public assembly, right to bare arms, and wearing of the color green. The English believed that anyone who wore the color green was an Irish rebel, and if one was caught wearing green, you could be tortured or hung. Now with Ireland being a free state the “wearing of the green” is a sign of freedom, that is why you would wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. Now if you are Irish, such as my self you would know that the more powerful color to wear in orange. The color orange stands for the suffering that the English put upon them. That is why the Irish flag is green for freedom, white for purity, and orange for the suffering that the Irish people had.
So that is why my family normaly wears orange instead of the green. To this day my family makes a big deal out of St. Patrick’s Day, because we are Irish and truly understand the actual importance of the day. So through all the hardships that my family has had to suffer, thorugh the ages, this is our way of remebering where we came from. I know that for my self I will make sure that my children’s children know why they should be proud to wear the color green and know the truth of St. Patrick’s Day.
