Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Winn Technology Group! Here we’ve compiled some fun facts to share at your office party and other festivities.

1. St. Patrick’s Day is the national holiday of Ireland and is usually celebrated on March 17.

2. The average amount American St. Patrick’s Day revelers will spend this holiday is $36.52 per person, totaling a combined $4.6 billion, according to a report by the National Retail Federation.

3. It is believed St. Patrick, a Roman-Britain-born Christian missionary, was born in the late fourth century and is credited with bringing Christianity to the Irish people.

4. St. Patrick’s given name was His given name was Maewyn Succat.

5. Irish immigrants began observing the holiday in Boston in 1737 and the first St. Patrick’s Day parade was held in New York City in 1766.

6. Saint Patrick himself would have to deal with pinching on his feast day. His color was “Saint Patrick’s blue,” a light shade. The color green only became associated with the big day after it was linked to the Irish independence movement in the late 18th century.

7. New York may have more manpower, but Chicago has a spectacle all its own. The city has been celebrating Saint Patrick by dumping green dye into the Chicago River since 1962. It takes 40 tons of dye to get the river to a suitably festive shade!

8. For most of the 20th century, Saint Patrick’s Day was considered a strictly religious holiday in Ireland, which meant that the nation’s pubs were closed for business on March 17. (The one exception went to beer vendors at the big national dog show, which was always held on Saint Patrick’s Day.) In 1970, the day was converted to a national holiday, and the stout resumed flowing.

9. At the age of 16, Patrick had the misfortune of being kidnapped by Irish raiders who took him away and sold him as a slave. He spent several years in Ireland herding sheep and learning about the people there. At the age of 22, he managed to escape. He made his way to a monastery in England where he spent 12 years growing closer to God.

10. Many claim the shamrock represents faith, hope, and love, or any number of other things but it was actually used by Patrick to teach the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and how three things, the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit could be separate entities, yet one in the same. Obviously, the pagan rulers of Ireland found Patrick to be convincing because they quickly converted to Christianity.

11. According to legend, St. Patrick drove all the snakes, or in some translations, "toads," out of Ireland. In reality, this probably did not occur, as there is no evidence that snakes have ever existed in Ireland, the climate being too cool for them to thrive. Despite that, scholars suggest that the term "snakes" may be figurative and refer to pagan religious beliefs and practices rather than reptiles or amphibians.

12. Approximately 13 million pints of Guinness will be consumed worldwide on St. Patrick's Day, according to WalletHub, which released a St. Patrick's Day by the Numbers report this week.

13. There are No Female Leprechauns. If Irish folk tales are to be believed, the mystical beings are expressly male.

14. If, by chance, one did happen to find a mystical pot at the end of a rainbow this St. Patrick's Day, and it contained 1,000 gold coins weighing one ounce each, WalletHub estimated the total current worth at $1.26 million.

15. An estimated 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry. Some are pure-blood Irish, meaning they or their parents came from Ireland, but many more have mixed ancestry today. By contrast, there are 4.2 million people living in Ireland. This peculiarity has a lot to do with the troubled history of Ireland. During the potato famine in Ireland, millions of Irish left the country for the US. This diaspora of Irish continued throughout much of the 19th century. Great numbers of Irish immigrants filled factories, served as railroad laborers --and even joined the military, sometimes immediately upon stepping foot on American soil! During the US Civil War, entire regiments of troops were comprised exclusively of Irish immigrants. It wasn't until the economic boom of the 1990s that more Irish stayed in their native country than traveled abroad searching for better opportunities.

Have fun and stay safe!

Sources:

https://kidskonnect.com/holidays-seasons/saint-patricks-day/

http://mentalfloss.com/article/55599/15-delightful-facts-about-saint-patricks-day

http://www.catholic.org/news/saints/story.php?id=45045

https://list25.com/25-little-known-facts-about-st-patricks-day/

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/10-things-st-patricks-day-including-real/story?id=29618275