St. Patrick's Day!!!!!

Saturday March 17th 2012

 Fun Facts!!! 

According to St. Patricks Day lore, Patrick used three leaves of a shamrock to explain the christian holy trinity:

The Father

The Son and

The Holy Spirit!

Millions of people will be celebrating St. Patricks Day tomorrow. People will wear green, will eat green eggs-n-ham, cook corned beef and cabbage, and celebrate with pints of green beer!

Someone even dies the river green in Chicago! http://www.greenchicagoriver.com/

• Dublin's St. Patrick's Day parade is little more than 75 years old. This year festival organizers will launch 15,000 pounds (7 metric tons) of fireworks to cap their celebration, which is expected to draw 400,000 spectators.
• Today New York's St. Patrick's Day parade is the longest running civilian parade in the world. This year nearly three million spectators are expected to watch the spectacle and some 150,000 participants plan to march.
 For those of you interrested in the St. Patrick himself. St. Patrick wasn't even Irish. He was born in Britain around A.D. 390 to an aristocratic Christian family with a townhouse, a country villa, and plenty of slaves.
What's more, Patrick professed no interest in Christianity as a young boy, Freeman noted.
At 16, Patrick's world turned: He was kidnapped and sent overseas to tend sheep as a slave in the chilly, mountainous countryside of Ireland for seven years.

 According to folklore, a voice came to Patrick in his dreams, telling him to escape. He found passage on a pirate ship back to Britain, where he was reunited with his family.
The voice then told him to go back to Ireland.
"He gets ordained as a priest from a bishop, and goes back and spends the rest of his life trying to convert the Irish to Christianity," Freeman said.
Patrick's work in Ireland was tough—he was constantly beaten by thugs, harassed by the Irish royalty, and admonished by his British superiors. After he died on March 17, 461, Patrick was largely forgotten.
But slowly, mythology grew around Patrick, and centuries later he was honored as the patron saint of Ireland, Freeman noted.

The March 17th tradition of wearing green is explained in differing ways. It's said that blue was originally the color associated with the holiday but over time green took over in popularity due to Ireland's nickname as "The Emerald Isle", the green in the Irish flag and the clover that St. Patrick used in his teachings about Catholicism.
In Ireland, some still follow the tradition where Catholics wear green and Protestants wear orange. These colors are associated with the religious sects and are the represented on the Irish flag; the white on the flag is symbolic of the peace between the two.
On the holiday, people in Ireland do not wear as much green or celebrate quite as wildly as revelers do elsewhere, although there is a legend that wearing green makes you invisible to leprechauns that will pinch you if they can see you.

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everybody!!! Be safe this year if you are sipping the green beer!!!!! Do not drink and drive!!!! I will leave you with a little St.Patty's Day Video!!!