Saint Patrick’s day, a day full of joy and copious amounts of alcohol. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over 1,000 years. And even with that long history the first ever Saint Patrick’s Day parade was held in America on March 17th, 1601 in what is now known as St. Augustine, Florida.

 The parade was held in a Spanish colony run by their Irish vicar, Ricardo Artur. Over a century later in 1737 homesick Irish soldiers in Boston marched for Saint Patrick. Today it is more of a yearly deal in a lot of places in the world. Now instead of just a parade we have tons of other festive activities like drinking, dancing, pinching, and leprechaun hunting. 

“Today I’m feeling very lucky because today I feel the luck of the Irish,” said sophomore Sophia Ghagare. 

Even though green is a staple of this holiday, it wasn’t always the color of this day. The color blue was once associated with saint Patrick then green. Several of the paintings of the aforementioned saint show him wearing mostly blue clothes. At some point along the line of these celebrations we started wearing green, but why? Well along with not wanting to get pinched for not wearing the right color, wearing green is supposed to make you invisible to leprechauns. 

“I’m going to try and find the leprechaun,” said senior Jack Stricker.

We all know that the Chicago river likes to dye their river green for the holiday. But the stunning visual of a green river is the only purpose for the dye. Since 1962 the citizens of Chicago have dyed the river not for pure spectacle but the bright green dye was actually used to detect unauthorized sewages in the river. But after seeing just how pretty a bright green river is they decided to dye it every year. 

“I feel very happy and excited to see everyone wearing green,” said junior Ella Heredia. 

 As you can see this holiday has evolved a lot since its humble beginnings all of those centuries ago. But no matter how it changes the heart of what makes the holiday special stays the same, friends and family get together and cut loose. St Patrick might have driven the snakes out of Ireland but he drove his holiday right into our hearts.