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St Patrick's Day

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.

When it falls

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.

The story

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.

How the day is kept

  • Parades in Dublin, New York, Boston, Chicago, Sydney and hundreds of smaller places; Chicago dyes its river green for the morning.
  • Green is worn, and the shamrock pinned; the Irish head of government presents a bowl of shamrock at the White House.
  • Lenten restrictions are lifted for the day in Ireland, which is why the pubs are part of it.

More world days

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 →