If You're Not Irish

Illustration of a green dog smoking a pipe and walking on two legs with black text above and green text below on a white background

St. Patrick’s Day is a cultural and religious holiday held on March 17 that is dedicated to the patron saint of Ireland. It is traditionally observed by the Catholic Church, but has come to be celebrated most famously by the Irish people and their descendants.

In the United States, St. Patrick’s Day is typically honored through numerous parades, copious alcohol consumption, and various displays of green. In fact, the Chicago River has been dyed green for every St. Patty’s Day since 1962. The holiday has been celebrated in the United States as far back as 1601, when Spanish explorers in St. Augustine, Florida held a feast and fired artillery pieces to mark the occasion. Today, St. Patrick’s Day is a heavily commercialized holiday for most Americans. According to The Independent, it marks the one day out of the year when non-Irish Americans “get their cod-Celtic connections out of their systems…[and] wear badges that say ‘If you’re not Irish, fake it’”.