10 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ST. PATRICK

1. St. Patrick was born in Britain near the end of Roman occupation. His birthname was Maewyn Succat.  Patrick came from “patricius”  meaning father.
2. Around age 16, he was captured by Irish pirates and sold to a Celtic priest. He spent the next six years as a shepherd before he escaped back to Britain.  By then he was a committed Christian.  He spent the next fifteen years studying Christianity, including in France. He then returned to Ireland to minster to Christians there and to convert pagans. 
3. According to legend, he rid Ireland of snakes, but it is believed the island never had the reptiles to begin with.
4. He used the shamrock (three-leaved clover) as a visual aid to teach the concept of the Holy Trinity. The leaves represent the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The stem represents their oneness.  The word comes from the Celtic word for the flower – “seamroy”. It was a sacred plant representing spring.
5. Leprechaun comes from the word lobaircin meaning “small-bodied man”. The Irish thought they were cobblers who fixed the shoes of fairies.
6. The first St. Patrick’s Day celebration is believed to have been held in St. Augustine on March 17, 1601.  In 1737, in Boston and New York City, home-sick Irish soldiers in the British army had parades for the first time.
7. In Ireland, the meal of ham and cabbage became associated with the holiday. In America, Irish immigrants could not afford the ham, so corned beef was substituted.
8. The color blue was actually the color St. Patrick favored for his robes.
9. As far as the drinking that the holiday is famous for, this came from another legend. Patrick once stopped at a tavern.  When the innkeeper was stingey with his whiskey, Patrick demanded “a drop of the hard stuff”.  This became known as “drowning the shamrock”.
10. Patrick has not been officially declared a saint. He lived before the Church began canonizing saints and the Catholic Church has never bothered to make it official.  

https://www.history.com/news/st-patricks-day-facts

https://gocity.com/dublin/en-us/blog/facts-about-st-patrick

https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-st-patrick/