The death day of the missionary who brought Christianity to Ireland, kept as Ireland's national day and, by a diaspora of seventy million, as a green parade in every city that has one.
17 March, the traditional death day of Patrick, kept every year on the same date.
The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.
Patrick was British, taken to Ireland as a slave at sixteen, escaped, and went back as a missionary. The shamrock is attached to him because of a story that he used its three leaves to explain the Trinity.
The parade is an American invention — the first were held by Irish soldiers in New York and Boston in the eighteenth century — and was exported back to Ireland, where the Dublin festival now runs for five days.
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The Phala almanac shows this day where it falls for your own city — sunrise, tithi and all five limbs, anywhere on earth. See how the almanac works →
