Dia De San Patricio

cio Saint Patrick’s Day is a holiday celebrating the patron saint of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain, he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland as a slave at the young age of 16. He managed to escapebut would return to Ireland and is often credited for introducing Christianity to the Irish people. After this Saint Patrick became an important part of Ireland’s folklore, with deeds such asbanishing all snakes from Ireland and using a three leaf clover to explain the holy trinity.
Since the middle ages Irish people celebrated the catholic St. Patrick holiday on March 17, however the firstparade to celebrate Ireland’s patron saint didn’t took place on Ireland, but rather on the United States. On 1762 Irish soldiers (Serving under the English flag) marched through New York City, playingtraditional Irish music. After this and over the next years Irish identity flourished amongst the large immigrant population in the United States, leading to the creation of many societies. Saidsocieties would hold annual parades on St. Patrick’s day, featuring drums and bagpipes, until 1848 when all New York Irish societies agreed to join their parades to form a single official parade that laststo this day. Today this parade is the largest civilian parade in the United States and the oldest in the world. Each year over 3 million people watch 150,000 parade during St. Patrick’s day in citiessuch as New York City, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.
Although now is part of the American culture this was not always the case. During the great potato famine nearly a million Irish people fledIreland and traveled to the United States. Although they were mostly unwelcomed by the American society, soon it was clear that the Irish immigrants were a powerful working and political force, andthis caused politicians to court the Irish vote. Many started to attend the St. Patrick’s day parade, like president Harry S. Truman in 1948.
As the Irish immigrants and their descendants spread...