St. Patricks Day: Made in America? Until the 1970s, St. Patricks Day in Ireland was a minor religious holiday. A priest would acknowledge the feast day, and families would celebrate with a big meal, but that was about it. St. Patricks Day was basically invented in America by Irish-Americans, Freeman said. Timothy Meagher, an expert in Irish-American history at Washington, D.C.s Catholic University, said in 2009 Irish charitable organizations originally celebrated St. Patricks Day with banquets in places such as Boston, Savannah, and Charleston, South Carolina. Eighteenth-century Irish soldiers fighting with the British in the U.S. Revolutionary War held the first St. Patricks Day parades. Some soldiers, for example, marched through New York City in 1762 to reconnect with their Irish roots. Other parades followed in the years and decades after, including well-known celebrations in Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, primarily in flourishing Irish immigrant communities. It becomes a way to honor the saint but also to confirm ethnic identity and to create bonds of solidarity, said Meagher. Source: John Roach National Geographic Published March 14, 2014
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 11:49:54 +0000
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