Skip to Content

7 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About St Patrick’s Day

Ah go on, give it a share!


7 things we think you might not know about St Patrick’s day. Enjoy and please share 🙂 

  1. March 17th is actually when Patrick died not when he was born
  2. You’re odds of finding a four-leaf clover are about 1 in 10,000.
  3. St. Patrick wasn’t Irish.St – Patrick wasn’t Irish, and he wasn’t born in Ireland. Patrick’s parents were Roman citizens living in modern-day England, or more precisely in Scotland or Wales (scholars cannot agree on which). He was born in 385 AD. By that time, most Romans were Christians and the Christian religion was spreading rapidly across Europe.
  4. St. Patrick was a slave – At the age of 16, Patrick had the misfortune of being kidnapped by Irish raiders who took him away and sold him as a slave. He spent several years in Ireland herding sheep and learning about the people there. At the age of 22, he managed to escape.
  5. Legend says St. Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland – According to legend, St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. In reality, this probably did not occur, as there is no evidence that snakes have ever existed in Ireland, the climate being too cool for them to thrive.
  6. There are more Irish in the USA than Ireland – Well, sort of. An estimated 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry. Some are pure-blood Irish, meaning they or their parents came from Ireland, but many more have mixed ancestry today. By contrast, there are 4.2 million people living in Ireland.
  7. You couldn’t drink on St Patrick’s Day in Ireland until 1970! – Aside from the colour green, the activity most associated with St. Patrick’s Day is drinking. However, Irish law, from 1903 to 1970, declared St. Patrick’s Day a religious observance for the entire country meaning that all pubs were shut down for the day. That meant no beer, not even the green kind, for public celebrants. The law was overturned in 1970, when St. Patrick’s was reclassified as a national holiday – allowing the taps to flow freely once again

Ah go on, give it a share!