Most Interesting St. Patrick’s Day Facts

1.??????St. Patrick’s Day is an Irish national holiday with banks, stores, and businesses closing for the day.

2.??????The first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the United States was held in Boston (1737).

3.??????Shamrocks are the national flower/emblem of Ireland.

4.??????The color of St. Patrick’s Day was originally blue.

5.??????Beer is one of the most widely consumed beverages on St. Patrick’s Day.

6.??????Legend says that each leaf of the clover has a meaning: Hope, Faith, Love and Luck.

7.??????1962 marked the first time Chicago dyed their river green for St Patrick’s Day.

8.??????Guinness is one of the most popular drinks on St. Patrick’s Day. Here are 34 recipes

9.??????Shamrock shakes are also very popular (and tasty!):

10.??There are 34.7 million U.S. residents with Irish ancestry. This number is more than seven times the population of Ireland itself.

11.??The real St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. He was born in Britain around A.D. 390 to an aristocratic Christian family.

12.??Your odds of finding a four-leaf clover are about 1 in 10,000.

13.??The world’s shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade is held in an Irish village. It lasts only 100 yards, between the village’s two pubs.

14.??St. Patrick never got canonized by a pope, making his saintly status somewhat questionable.