Happy St. Padraig's Day.......

I found a few interesting little known facts about St. Patrick's Day and wanted to share them as they are quite fascinating, and it is St. Patrick's Day.

Factiods:


~St. Patrick's birth name was Maewyn Succat.  After he became a priest he changed his name to Patricius.  He was born in Wales to Roman parents around AD 387 (late 4th century)-i.e. not Irish.

~St. Patrick allegedly never wore anything green as he preferred blue, light blue to be exact.  The color green was associated with St. Patrick's Day after Ireland declared independence in the 18th century.


~Legend has it St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland but science has determined that Ireland is not an ideal environment for snakes as it is too cold to host reptiles dating back to the Ice Age.

~St. Patrick was kidnapped at 14 by Irish pirates.

~Paddy versus Patty.  In America, we refer to St. Patrick's Day as St. Patty's Day but in Ireland Patty is a shortened version of the female name Patricia which has nothing to do with St. Patrick, however, the Irish spelling for Patrick is Padraig and when you shorten Padraig you get Paddy.

~Catch that leprechaun.  The mascots for St. Paddy's Day according to Irish folklore are mischievous, shoemaking fairies who are known for hiding their riches at the end of rainbows. 

If you catch a leprechaun, you are granted three wishes in exchange for their freedom. 

An odd tidbit about leprechauns is they are all male, no female leprechauns according to Irish folklore.

~Did you know shamrocks are not four-leaf clovers?  Shamrocks are three-leaf clovers and the national emblem of Ireland.  The word shamrock comes from Gaelic seamrog which means little clover.  While there is not an exact shamrock plant, scientist agree that the term shamrock refers to Trifolium Repens a.k.a. white clover.  Some believe it also refers to Triolium Dubium a.k.a. sucking clover.  Both species have leaves separated into three leaflets (trifolium). 

There are at least 300 species that belong to the trifolium family.  A clover is a trifoliate.  You may occasionally find four-leaf, five-leaf, and even six-leaf cloves.  Four-leaf clovers are thought to bring good luck but your chances of finding one are 1 in 10,000.  So all shamrocks are clovers but not all clovers are shamrocks. 

~Interestingly more Irish live in the US than in Ireland.  It is estimated that 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry.  The population of Ireland is 4.7 million.

~And a final very random fact I found about not about St. Patrick's Day but about Ireland is that divorce was not permitted in Ireland until 1997.  That is mind-blowing to me.

So there you have, random facts and trivia for St. Paddy's Day.
A few other post from Horsing Around at Home for preschoolers and more facts and trivia can be found here.