St. Patrick’s Day: Shamrocks, festivities and Irish culture. It is celebrated on March 17 every year, and many participate in the activities that happen around the Bay Area, with one of the popular events being the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in San Francisco.
But aside from all of the celebrating, what is St. Patrick’s Day? It began with St. Patrick himself, who is the patron saint of Ireland. He was a Christian missionary and bishop who was said to have brought Christianity to the country. One of the most important things he did was create the symbol of the shamrock, which he used to represent the Holy Trinity, a Christian concept. This symbol has lasted all the way to modern times, and now it has become a huge part of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and Irish culture.
“There’s a lot more celebration in Ireland, they do really elaborate [celebrations]. They’ve really got the spirit, which we have a little bit here in America, but it’s just to a lesser degree.” Junior Lilly Lauritzen celebrates St. Patrick’s Day every year with her family. “I usually celebrate by wearing green and [having] a nice breakfast with my family.”
Something traditional and festive they like to do is to put green food coloring in all of their food.
“We’ll have, like, green pancakes or green milk,” says Lauritzen.
St. Patrick’s Day is commonly celebrated with traditional Irish food and good company. Popular dishes include corned beef hash, shepherd’s pie and Irish stew. Fast food chains also bring out special deals for the holiday, such as Krispy Kreme with four special donut flavors just for the holiday.
In the Bay Area, many people attend the St. Patrick’s Day parade in San Francisco. This year, the parade was on Saturday, March 15. It starts on the corner of 2nd and Market Street before making its way down to the Civic Center Plaza. There were over 100 floats and the whole city was decked out in green. Traditional Irish dancers, marching bands and bagpipers came to celebrate as well. It is a lively parade where people of all ages come together to celebrate this Irish tradition.
“It was really fun for everyone to be together and everyone was wearing green. [It was] all very festive,” said junior Finley Wilke-Hiland. “There was music and parades, [lots of] festivities.”
All of the parade festivities are put on by the United Irish Societies of San Francisco. They’re often decked out with Irish flags, shamrocks and anything else that represents St. Patrick’s Day.
“My favorite float I saw was probably the huge potato, I thought it was super funny,” Wilke-Hiland said. “I also liked all theones that had flags all over [them].”
As for the NDB community, students celebrated the holiday by wearing green tops to school in place of the regular uniform. Spirit points were given to those who participated, which encouraged a lot of students to dress up, making the halls a sea of green. ASB also set up a candy guessing game with the winner winning the whole candy jar while Epicurean made a spread of food for lunch, including a special selection of St. Patrick ‘s-themed desserts.
This special holiday celebrates Irish culture, heritage and community through parades, food and festive traditions.
