Like many self-proclaimed “Irish” you run into West of Galway and South of Delancey Street on March 17, Ireland’s most popular saint was not 100 percent Irish. Point of fact, the “Apostle of Ireland” was not at all Irish. According to Catholic Online, Patrick was born in Kilpatrick, Scotland, in the year 385 to Roman parents.

Patrick was first brought to Ireland as a slave when he was 14 years old. Ireland at that time greatly resembled a 1980’s heavy metal video: chock full of pagans, druids and other gloomy, hooded, non-Christian types. Young Pat resisted these unsavory local spiritual practices, and it was there, tending the sheep of his pagan captors, that the future saint first turned to the Lord in prayer.

Patrick eventually escaped captivity but was said to have been bade in a sacred vision to return to Ireland as an adult, converting many of the island nation’s people to Christianity. Every year in America, we celebrate a life of great faith and piety by chugging untold quantities of Mickey’s Malt Liquor and McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes.

Saint Patrick was said to have used the shamrock to illustrate the concept of the Holy Trinity to the Irish peasants. The city of Boston held our continent’s first Saint Patrick’s Day Celebration in 1737. The original Shamrock Shake was introduced in 1970. Like most great culinary creations, the dubious green concoction was the brain child of a Chicago merchandising firm. Just like Phil the Groundhog, the Shamrock Shake makes its seasonal appearance every year in early February. The world’s most omnipresent fast food chain, McDonald’s, even makes the product available in Ireland.

Chicago, which has attracted the Irish ever since the building of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in the middle 19th century, sees fit to dye its namesake river green ever year in observance of our most popular bar holiday.

The custom of “Wearing O’ The Green” originally began as an Irish folk song which commemorated a 1798 Irish uprising against the English Crown. In the late 18th century, wearing green in occupied Ireland was potentially a capital crime. These days, not wearing green on Saint Patrick’s Feast Day is a crime punishable by the dreaded “pinchys”.

Saint Patrick’s is one day of the year in which anything even remotely Irish can generate some “long green.” 2U, which pays tribute to Irish rockers U2 and bills itself as “the World’s 2nd Best U2 Show,” charges up to 20 percent more for a booking on Saint Patrick’s than it does any other day of the year. Deborah Watts handles Think Lizzy, the Austin, Texas, based tribute to Irish national treasure, the Late Phi Lynott and his band, Thin Lizzy. Think Lizzy generally charges $1000 for an appearance, but Watts confirmed, “We normally double the price for St Patrick’s”.

The  traditional Saint Patrick’s meal of corned beef represented a compromise for early Irish immigrants. If those “boyos” had their druthers, they would’ve liked boiled pork on their plates, but pork was more expensive in their adopted country than it had been in the homeland.

Late night TV comic Bill Maher once quipped, “Why is the drunk the only Irish icon we celebrate on March 17th? What about the unreadable novelist?”

There are those who’ve said that Saint Patrick’s revelers would be much better off, and much healthier, reading James Joyce’s “Ulysses” rather than drinking green beers chased with shots of Jameson.

Early Irish settlers of America jokingly referred to urban police departments as “Irish Welfare” because some Irishmen landed jobs as cops the day they got off the boat. As with every Saint Patrick’s, there was a tremendous police presence out on the streets Monday. If you must imbibe, do your best to walk home from the bar. Even if the “Irish Welfare” pops you for drunk and disorderly, or public intoxication, that’s much cheaper and much less hassle than a D.U.I.

jlrichardson@mavs.coloradomesa.edu