10 facts you may not know about St. Patrick’s Day

As many well know, tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. If it has slipped your mind, then I suggest quickly changing your wardrobe plans to include wearing green. I would hate for you to get pinched. Now that we have gotten the obvious out of the way, how about a few facts about St. Patrick’s Day that you may have not known.

St. Patrick was actually a British guy not Irish. He was kidnapped as a teenager by Irish raiders and brought to Ireland. He ended up staying in the country, even after escaping his captors, to be a missionary.
Green is not the original St. Patrick color. Originally, the saint’s color was blue. Green came about due to the connection with Ireland and shamrocks.
Speaking of shamrocks, St. Patrick used these to tell the story of the Trinity. Later, Irish used the clovers to stick in their lapels as a form of national symbolism. So, there aren’t any four-leaf clovers on St. Patrick’s Day.
Corned beef and cabbage are really an Irish-American deal. To celebrate the special day, Irish-Americans would splurge on a special meal. Brisket was the cheapest meat and cabbage was a cheap vegetable, giving us the traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal.
Mythology says that St. Patrick drove all of the snakes out of Ireland, but in reality, Ireland never had snakes in the first place.
The first celebration of St. Patrick’s Day was in 1762 in America.
For the first several years, all bars were closed during St. Patrick’s Day because it fell during Lent; this was lifted in 1961
The Chicago River will get 45 pounds of green vegetable dye dumped in it this year during St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated in space twice. The most recent was by Chris Hadfield in 2013.
Traditionally, leprechauns are only male. There are no girls.

So, there you have some facts that I bet you didn’t know. My family will be celebrating the day with green dyed food. There is such a thing as green eggs and ham at my house, at least for one day.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!