Is there a true meaning to St. Patrick's Day? Is there real history behind this date? Often that sort of question makes me ponder what would be the false meaning. But there are no contentious beginnings with St. Patrick's Day. And this is celebrated in more countries than any other festival.
It starts as the celebration of the arrival of christianity in Ireland. Back in St. Patrick's time, the Irish were "pagans" and the three leaves of the shamrock were used to explain the Holy Trinity. Probably these were the same Celtic pagans who brought us the Leprechaun - small-bodied fellow to entertain us with possible pots of gold.
No celebration can reap mass commercialization without its own colour and the Irish green is spectacular. We have taken to it completely. There are even pictures of the international space station version of the festival with Chris Hatfield wearing green.
Just like Christmas having Poinsettias, St. Patrick's Day has its flower - Shamrocks - Oxalis - with those green leaves.
Getting ready for today, we tried to buy some at the Watering Can yesterday, but they'd sold out. And I found out that there was a crop failure at the Hellebore grower so they won't have Hellebores this year. Now that one really worried me.
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