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Well, in college, St Pats is the patron saint of engineering. That was enough for us

We celebrate in my family for my grandma's birthday, but in general as a holiday I have no idea! ha

St. Patrick is a patron saint of Ireland. He wasn't Irish! He was sent there as a slave initially, and then he went back as a Christian missionary. @Mae: I'm fairly certain I read that there were not any indigenous snakes in Ireland. I think the story about driving the serpents out is a metaphor.

Basically, it started in the US with the Irish immigrants celebrating it as a way to reconnect with their heritage. It was originally a Catholic holiday, St. Patrick's feast day.

Catholic saints have "feast days," where you remember the saint/celebrate their life, etc. Sometimes people celebrate the feast day of the saint they were named after. Different feast days are popular in regions where that saint has significance - St. Lucia Day in Scandinavia, for example.

St. Patrick was a Christian missionary to Ireland. His best known teaching is that the trinity (God as Father, son, and Holy Spirit) is like the clover with three leaves but one plant. He is also well known for his "breastplate prayer." This is my favorite part of it:

"I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock."

When the Irish emigrated, the holiday became a market of ethnic identity. Fun fact - the second largest St. Patrick's Day celebration is in Butte, Montana.

Of course now people celebrate with drinking and dyeing food green (wtf Pinterest), things which don't have much to do with the saint or Irish heritage!

I'm Irish, and so is my husband. We just talked about it, and neither of our families ever taught us the true reason for the holiday. -- We've since learned about it.

For us, we just love a day to wear green, to celebrate being Irish (for whatever reasons), eat roasted potatoes and cabbage, and drink Irish beer. It's also my half birthday, so I approve.

We don't celebrate it because we are not Irish.

To add: The patron saint of England is St George. We celebrate his feast in April.

So I grew up Irish Catholic so this idea is just foreign to me. When people say they don't know why we celebrate it, do youesf you don't know the history of the saint, or why it's a thing in the US, or something else?