It’s St Patrick’s Day but are you ready to know the truth?

Gach duine lá sona st Pádraig ! For today’s blog post we thought we would mix things up a little! We all know we love to celebrate St Patrick’s day but do any of us really know the truth about  the traditions that make up this great holiday…

Did you know that St Patrick actually wore a light shade of BLUE!!! He was known around town as ‘St Patrick’s blue’ – we only know him for being green after he became associated with the Irish independence movement in the late 18th century.

HE WASN’T ACTUALLY IRISH! Whaaaaaaaaaaa?

Gamechanger! Patrick was born in either Scotland or Wales in the late fourth century. His parents were Roman and he made a name for himself by introducing Christianity to Ireland in the year 432. There are no words.

This next fact is painful to even type. It strips back the one thing we all thought was rooted at the core of this great holiday. It was actually meant to be a DRY HOLIDAY.  At its origins St Paddy’s Day was a strictly religious affair which meant that nationally all pubs were closed for business (the horror!) If you wanted to grab yourself a pint you’d have to head over to the National Dog Show being the only place open for beer vendors.

However things took a turn for the better in 1970 when the day was made into a national holiday and we’ve never looked back since.

We know we’ve thrown a lot of information your way in the past couple of minutes but this next piece is about to blow your mind.

Patrick wasn’t actually born Patrick.

He was actually born Maewyn Succat! He made the decision to change his name to Patricius after he became a priest. Happy Maewyn day everybody! Just doesn’t have quite the same ring does it.

So to summarise St Patrick wasn’t actually called Patrick, he wasn’t Irish and he liked to wear a specific light shade of blue. We don’t know about you but after finding all of that out we’ve come to the conclusion that denial is an amazing thing!