Happy St. Patrick's Day Post!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here is the obligatory holiday post to "celebrate" a holiday that's really nothing more than an excuse to drink a lot, wear green, and make being Irish "cool" for a day.

I'm not huge into St. Patrick's Day, if you couldn't tell. I'm not a big drinker, I'm not Irish, and I don't like cabbage (so the corned beef and cabbage dinner is out). I probably won't wear green today, and I won't be drinking green beer either. I also probably won't be listening to any U2. Jacksonville's not really big into St. Pattie's Day, unlike Boston, which is about an hour away from my family in Massachusetts. And in any case, my family's Portugese, not Irish, and so could really care less. (Give us some linguica or chourico, though, and we're there!) In Jacksonville, you'll get the typical people dressed in green drinking green beer at pubs and bars (Lynch's Irish Pub will be packed to capacity -- their annual St. Pattie's celebration is local legend), but there aren't really a whole lot of parades or anything. We certainly don't dye the St. John's River green.

Anyways, I collected some little known St. Patrick's Day facts to honor the holiday:

Americans usually wear green on St. Patrick's Day -- but in Ireland, green was considered to be an unlucky color for a long time. Green was considered the favorite color for the Good People, or faeries, in Irish folklore, and they liked to steal people and especially children who wore too much green.

The original color associated with St. Patrick was blue, not green.

St. Patrick was not born in Ireland -- he was British, and was kidnapped by Irish brigands when he was 16.

Irish-Americans claim the second largest ethnic group in the United States today, second to German-Americans (surprising). There are actually more Americans of Irish ancestry then there are in Ireland!

Guiness, the beer of choice on St. Patrick's Day, was first brewed by Arthur Guiness in Dublin in 1759. 1.9 billion pints of Guiness are consumed around the world every year.

Swedish geographer Ulf Erlingsson recently claimed that Ireland is truly the lost city of Atlantis, identified by Plato in his works Timaeus and Critias.

St. Patrick supposedly used the three-leaved shamrocks to explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish.

March 17th is also home to some other, albeit less well-known, holidays, like:

Submarine Day

Companies That Care Day

Common Courtesy Day

Campfire Girls Day

The rubber band was also invented on March 17th, 1845.

So, Happy St. Patrick's Day to all you Irish folk out there, and to all of you who are just Irish for the day. Have fun, be responsible, and drink some green beer for me!