We're now in the home stretch until St. Patrick's Day 2020!
It's the most wonderful time of the year- St. Patrick's Day 2020 is officially just under a month away!
Read More: Share your St. Patrick's Day news with the global Irish on IrishCentral
Don't worry about keeping track of the official countdown to March 17,2020 - IrishCentral has got you covered with this handy clock:
Read more of IrishCentral's St. Patrick's Day stories here
Fun at the Dublin St. Patrick's Day Parade 2019 (RollingNews.ie)
To help get you into the St. Patrick's Day spirit, here are some seriously random facts about the global Irish holiday:
- The patron saint of Ireland, Saint Patrick, was in fact born in Wales
- Shamrocks are associated with St. Patrick's Day as it's said that the patron saint of Ireland used the three-leaved plant to explain the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) to the pagan Irish.
- For many years, blue was the color most often associated with St. Patrick. Green was considered unlucky. St. Patrick's blue was considered symbolic of Ireland for many centuries and the Irish Presidential Standard is still blue
- The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place in New York in the 1760s
- St Patrick's Day was first marked in Sydney, Australia in 1810, when Lachlan Macquarie, the Governor of New South Wales, provided entertainment for Irish convict workers
- Traditionally, every year, the Irish leader hands a crystal bowl full of shamrock to the US President. The shamrock, grown in Kerry, is immediately destroyed by the Secret Service after the exchange
- Across the world, approximately 13 million pints of Guinness are sold every March 17
- There were 4.65 million cases of Irish whiskey sold in the United States in 2018
- Forty pounds of green dye is used to turn the Chicago River green every St. Patrick's Day. The dye lasts for five hours and the tradition started way back in 1962.
- The average American spends $40.18 celebrating St. Patrick's Day
- Eighty-four percent of women and 77 percent of men in the United States wear green on St. Patrick's Day
Do you already have plans for March 17, 2020? What will you be doing this coming St. Patrick's Day? Let us know in the comments section below!
* Originally published in Sept 2019.
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