In the week since the infamous St Patrick’s Day celebrations, I have become increasingly intrigued by the transnational, if not global, appeal of the Irish celebration. Each year it arrives in mid-March St. Patrick’s Day sparks a sense of joy, excitement and dare I say patriotic feeling in me, despite the fact that I myself have no Irish blood (as far as I know of).
This seems the case for many people around the world who, without a familial or personal lineage rooted in Ireland, feel connected to the customs and traditions associated with the Irish holiday. I wondered why this was, how far the origins of the celebration had a role in its current transnationalism and why it has this transnational appeal which seemingly surpasses that of any other national holiday.
The original roots of the celebration might give us some indication of its relevance beyond national borders. Saint Patrick himself was not Irish by birth and was allegedly born in Britain in the fifth century A.D. to an aristocratic Christian family. He immigrated to Ireland with a mission to convert the Irish to Christianity after he had been captured as a slave to pirates for six years. Thus, for many Irish people the day remained a primarily religious and private celebration even into the latter half of the 20th century, with it only being declared a public holiday in Ireland in 1904.
In fact, the modern version of the holiday as a public celebration is largely an American export, as Cronin and Adair show (Cronin & Adair, 2002). The first recorded celebrations were held in Boston in 1737, where a group of elite Irish men celebrated ‘the Irish saint’ over dinner (Cronin, 2015). Yet the tradition of parading really started in the 1760s amongst Irish Catholic members of the British Army in New York looking to re-connect with their Irish roots.
Emigration and the influence of the Irish diaspora in the 19th century heightened this holiday’s transnational appeal. The famines in Ireland encouraged some 2 million to emigrate from the island, with most settling in America and Britain (The Economist, 2018). Irish-Americans celebrated their Catholicism and venerated Irish nationalism but they also stressed their patriotic belief in their new home. This explains why Cronin has described St. Patrick’s Day at that time as ‘a public declaration of a hybrid identity’ – one based on the ‘belief in the future of Ireland as a nation free from British rule’ along with ‘a strict adherence to the values and liberties that the U.S. offered them’ (Cronin, 2015).
By the mid-20th century the holiday had become a celebration of all things Irish and was widely established across America. But celebrations had also become common across the world by this time. The Caribbean island of Montserrat officially marks St. Patrick’s Day with a ‘freedom run’, amongst other things, reflecting its history as a refuge for persecuted Irish Catholics as far back as the 17th century. Every March 17th Montserrat embodies a transnational fusion of Irish, African and Caribbean tradition. Tokyo has hosted St. Patrick’s festivities since 1992, made all the more unique by the fact that it is largely organized by people who aren’t Irish (Janik, 2015). In Malta the day has been celebrated since the early 20th century originating with soldiers of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who were stationed in Floriana.
A combination of flexible historical origins with the growth of Irish emigration and openness to the expression of Irish identity across the world seems to give this celebration a distinctly transnational relevance and appeal. It might also just reflect a global appreciation for drinking Guinness, but that’s a more disputable point for another day.
References
Cronin, Michael, & Adair, Daryl, The wearing of the green: a history of St Patrick’s Day (London, 2002).
Michael Cronin, ‘How America Invented St. Patrick’s Day’, (2015) accessible at: http://time.com/3744055/america-invented-st-patricks-day/
Rachel Janik, ‘How St. Patrick’s Day Became the Most Global National Holiday’, (2015) accessible at: http://time.com/3746018/st-patricks-day-global/
The Economist, ‘How St Patrick’s Day celebrations went global’, (2018) accessible at: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/03/09/how-st-patricks-day-celebrations-went-global