The Americanization of St. Patrick's Day—Not a Quiet Catholic Feast Day Any More

This vintage St. Patrick's Day greeting card is emblematic of the adoption and popularization of the holiday in the U.S.  In reality the acceptance by Yankee Uncle Sam--presumably Protestant--of Catholic "bog trotters" was far from smooth or cordial.  

Note:  For those of you unaware, this is my natal anniversary. I Turn 77 today.  Bet you wondered how I got the name.  Anyway, I am rerunning a version of an oft run classic. Meanwhile to the Irish and wan-a-be-Irish, enjoy the day.  Have fun but try not to live down to some unfortunate stereotypes.   And for Christ’s sake don’t drink the damn green beer, an abomination and insult to the soul!  Have a dram of Jameson’s with a Guinness back for me!

Today is the Feast of St. Patrick, originally a low-key religious celebration in the Auld Sod.  In the U.S. it’s St. Patrick’s Day, which is, as they say, a whole other kettle of fish.  For better or worse this quasi-holiday is an Irish American phenomenon.  Let’s trace the metamorphosis from religiosity to ethnic muscle flexing, to Irish nationalism, to partisan political display, to equal opportunity public drinking festival. 

"Everybody's Irish!"  is the new equal opportunity slogan of American St. Patrick's Day promoted by breweries, bars, and bottle peddlers of all sorts.  The message seems to be working.

It all began on March 17, 1762 with the very first St. Patrick’s Day parade anywhere in the world.  Irish soldiers in a British regiment headquartered in New York City marched behind their musicians and drew cheers from the small local Irish minority, both Catholic and Protestant—mostly Protestant in those days.  It became if not an annual event, one which was observed most years.  When the Redcoats left the city at the end of the American Revolution various local Irish mutual aid societies like the Hibernians and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick held often competing events which, if they happened to intersect, sometimes devolved into brawls. 

After the United Irishman Uprising of 1798 was crushed, the British imposed a harsh repression including the banning of the wearing o’ the Green, a new wave of Irish refugees flooded New York, Boston, and other Eastern cities.  They inoculated the annual St. Patrick’s Day observances with a new political significance and wearing green (instead of the traditional Irish colors of blue and gold) became a protest against British rule in the motherland and a call to action to overthrow that rule. 

The Potato Famine unleashed yet another wave of immigration bringing throngs of displaced peasants to the already growing slums of the city. Competing Irish aid societies finally decided to unite behind a single, massive demonstration in New York in 1848.  The theme of independence for Ireland was mixed with an act of aggressive defiance by the now largely Catholic masses against the nativists from Tammany Hall who controlled the city government, the Know Nothings, and street gangs who harassed and bullied them.

In trying to market to Irish Americans, not everyone got it right.  This tonedeaf greeting card featured the pug-nosed Irish stereotypes featured in Know Nothing and anti-immigrant publications.  The figure on the left has a sash identifying him as a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  The one on the right supposedly is from a competing organization that had frequently brawled with the AOH for supremacy on St. Patrick's Day.

In 1858 the Fenian Brotherhood was organized in the United States in support the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), a secret oath society agitating for the establishment of a “democratic Irish republic.”  The St. Patrick’s Day parades in New York and other cities became powerful recruiting tools for the Fenians. Social events around the day annually raised thousands of dollars, much of it to support fantastic plots and buy arms.  On more than one occasion Fenian plots to attack Canada brought the U.S. and Britain perilously close to war, which, of course was the objective. 

By the second half of the 19th Century New York's St. Patrick's Day parades had become elaborate celebrations of Irish nationalism and a display of raw political power in the city.

The failure of the Easter Rebellion in 1916 in which labor leader James Connolly, fresh from several years in America as an IWW organizer, and an Irish-American unit of Hibernian Rifles were both involved, led to a fresh round of frenzied support for independence back home.  The campaign of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which led to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the Irish Civil War between the Free State government and republican rebels were both largely financed by Irish Americans.  Even after the establishment of the Republic in 1937, Irish-Americans continued to fund rebel groups aimed at uniting Ulster to the rest of the island, including support for Sein Fein and the Provisional IRA in their armed struggle through The Troubles.  All of this was reflected in the parades and other celebrations of the day which had become dominated by Rebel songs.

St. Patrick’s Day celebrations also were important displays of Irish culture.  Traditional Irish music and dance was so suppressed at home that both nearly disappeared.  Irish-Americans like Chicago’s Police Chief Francis O’Neill collected and preserved the songs and began schools to teach them and traditional Irish step dancing.  Both were re-introduced into Irish culture because of these efforts and put on display in St. Patrick’s Day parades, banquets, and concerts.

Hizzonor da Mayor, Richard J. Daley steps off with his blackthorn stick and green fedora at the head of the 1963 Chicago St. Patrick's Day joined by officials of the sponsoring Plumbers union, the Irish Consul General, Cardinal Albert Meyer (second from left} and actor Pat O'Brien to the Mayor's left and a bevy of politicians in the second row jockeying for position.  Then Republican Cook County States Attorney James P. Thompson can be spotted just over Daley's shoulder.

The Irish also excelled at political organization in this country.  Unlike other ethnic groups with large concentrations like the Germans, they were able to create viable political organizations with alliances with other ethnic groups that allowed them to control many city governments for decades.  In Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley brought the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, previously a South Side neighborhood event, to the heart of the Loop and dyed the Chicago River green every year in a display of political power.  Politicians of all ethnicities jockeyed to be as close as possible to Hizonor in the front ranks of the parade. 

By the late 20th Century St. Patrick’s Day spread well beyond its ethnic roots.  “Everyone is Irish on St. Paddy’s Day” became a byword pushed by breweries, bars, and distilleries making the day one of the biggest party days of the year.  Green beer and vomiting teenagers have become new symbols of the holiday. 

The semi-legendary Saint whose feast day is the occasion of all of the hoopla.  He wasn't Irish and did not drive the snakes out of the island--they never lived there to begin with.

And what about St. Patrick?  Well, what about him!

The Americanized St. Patrick’s Day—Not a Quiet Catholic Feast Day Any More

This vintage St. Patrick's Day greeting card is emblematic of the adoption and popularization of the holiday in the U.S.  In reality the acceptance by Yankee Uncle Sam--presumably Protestant--of Catholic "bog trotters" was far from smooth or cordial.

Note: For those of you unaware, this is my natal anniversary. I turn 76 today. Bet you wondered how I got the name. Anyway, I am rerunning a classic post. Meanwhile to the Irish and wan-a-be-Irish, enjoy the day. Have fun but try not to live down to some unfortunate stereotypes. And for Christ’s sake don’t drink the damn green beer, an abomination and insult to the soul! Have a dram of Jameson’s with a Guinness back for me! 

 

 

 

 

Up until the mid '60s St. Patrick's Day remained a religious festival in Ireland and the annual parade in Dublin, seen here in 1905, was mostly a religious procession, often led by the St. John's Total Abstinence and Benefit Society.  Now the parade is an American style extravaganza awash in Kelly Green, dancing leprechauns, shamrocks, and scantily clad girls.  General rowdiness is the rule of the day, largely due to the large annual pilgrimages to the Auld Sod by Irish Americans, now generations removed from the island.
 

Acknowledging the elephant in the room—today is the Feast of St. Patrick, originally a low-key religious celebration in the Auld Sod. In the U.S. it’s St. Patrick’s Day, which is, as they say, a whole other kettle of fish. For better or worse this quasi-holiday is an Irish American phenomenon. Let’s trace the metamorphosis from religiosity to ethnic muscle flexing, to Irish nationalism, to partisan political display, to equal opportunity public drinking festival. 

 

It all began on March 17, 1762 with the very first St. Patrick’s Day parade anywhere in the world. Irish soldiers in a British regiment headquartered in New York City marched behind their musicians and drew cheers from the small local Irish minority, both Catholic and Protestant—mostly Protestant in those days. It became if not an annual event, one which was observed most years. When the Redcoats left the city at the end of the American Revolution various local Irish mutual aid societies like the Hibernians and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick held often competing events which, if they happened to intersect, sometimes devolved into brawls. 

 

After the United Irishmen uprising of 1798 was crushed by the British imposing a harsh repression including the banning of the wearing o’ the Green, a new wave of Irish refugees flooded New York, Boston, and other eastern cities. They inoculated the annual St. Patrick’s Day observances with a new political significance and wearing green (instead of the traditional Irish colors of blue and gold) became a protest against British rule in the homeland and a call to action to overthrow that rule. 

 

In trying to market to Irish Americans, not everyone got it right.  This tone deaf greeting card featured the pug-nosed Irish stereotypes featured in Know Nothing and anti-immigrant publications.  The figure on the left has a sash identifying him as a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  The one on the right supposedly is from a competing organization that had frequently brawled with the AOH for supremacy on St. Patrick's Day.
 

The Potato Famine unleashed yet another wave of immigration bringing throngs of displaced peasants to the already growing slums of the city. Competing Irish aid societies finally decided to unite behind a single, massive demonstration in New York in 1848. The theme of independence for Ireland was mixed with an act of aggressive defiance by the now largely Catholic masses against the nativists from Tammany Hall who controlled the city government, the Know Nothings, and street gangs who harassed and bullied them. In 1858 the Fenian Brotherhood was organized in the United States in support the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), a secret oath society agitating for the establishment of a “democratic Irish republic.” The St. Patrick’s Day parades in New York and other cities became powerful recruiting tools for the Fenians. Social events around the day annually raised thousands of dollars, much of it to support fantastic plots and buy arms. On more than one occasion Fenian plots to attack Canada brought the U.S. and Britain perilously close to war, which, of course was the objective.

 

 

By the second half of the 19th Century New York's St. Patrick's Day parades had become elaborate celebrations of Irish nationalism and a display of raw political power in the city.

The failure of the Easter Rebellion in 1916 in which labor leader James Connolly, fresh from several years in America as an IWW organizer, and an Irish-American unit of Hibernian Rifles were both involved, led to a fresh round of frenzied support for independence back home. The campaign of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which led to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the Irish Civil War between the Free State government and republican rebels were both largely financed by Irish Americans. Even after the establishment of the Republic in 1937, Irish-Americans continued to fund rebel groups aimed at uniting Ulster to the rest of the island, including support for Sein Fein and the Provisional IRA in their armed struggle through The Troubles. All of this was reflected in the parades and other celebrations of the day which had become dominated by Rebel songs. 

 

Traditional Irish music and step dancing were nearly eradicated by Britain's policy of cultural genocide but were preserved and nurtured by American clubs and societies like this mid-20th Century step dancing group.  Dancing academies are now staples of St. Patrick's day parades and Knights of Columbus corned beef and cabbage dinners.
 

St. Patrick’s Day celebrations also were important displays of Irish culture. Traditional Irish music and dance were so suppressed at home that both nearly disappeared. Irish-Americans like Chicago’s Police Chief Francis O’Neill collected and preserved the songs and began schools to teach them and traditional Irish step dancing. Both were re-introduced into Irish culture as a result of these efforts and put on display in St. Patrick’s Day parades, banquets, and concerts. 

 

Hizzonor da Mayor, Richard J. Daley steps off with his blackthorn stick and green fedora at the head of the 1963 Chicago St. Patrick's Day joined by officials of the sponsoring Plumbers union, the Irish Consul General, Cardinal Alber Meyer (second from left} and actor Pat O'Brien to the Mayor's left and a bevy of politicians in the second row jockeying for position.  Then Republican Cook County States Attorney James P. Thompson can be spotted just over Daley's shoulder
 

The Irish also excelled at political organization in this country. Unlike other ethnic groups with large concentrations like the Germans, they were able to create viable political organizations with alliances with other ethnic groups that allowed them to control many city governments for decades. In Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley brought the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, previously a South Side neighborhood event, to the heart of the Loop and dyed the Chicago River green every year in a display of political power. Politicians of all ethnicities jockeyed to be as close as possible to Hizonor in the front ranks of the parade. 

 

By the late 20th Century St. Patrick’s Day had spread well beyond its ethnic roots. Everyone is Irish on St. Paddy’s Day became a byword pushed by breweries, bars, and distilleries making it one of the biggest party days of the year. Green beer and vomiting teenagers have become new symbols of the holiday. 

 

The semi-legendary Saint whose feast day is the occasion of all of the hoopla.  He wasn't Irish and did not drive the snakes out of the island--they never lived there to begin with. 

 

And what about St. Patrick? Well, what about him!

Columbus Day Ditched to Celebrate the People Who Knew Where they Were

Today is the Federal Holiday honoring Christopher Columbus, the alleged discover of the New World, who made his first landfall on the island of San Salvador on October 12, 1492.  Years ago, Congress, in all of its wisdom, assigned the holiday to the second Monday in October to make way for a possible three day week-end for the few people who get the day off—or possibly to extend the giant mattress sales that seem to have become one of the most visible traditions of the holiday.

The trouble is Columbus has been falling out of favor for some time, except among the Italian-Americans who used his Italian roots to claim their spot at the American table.  The Columbus Day parades in the big cities are less about the Navigator—an ironic title for someone who didn’t know where the hell he was—and more about, as an Italian friend once put it, Gumba Pride.  

Italian Americans display their ethnic pride and flex their political muscles at Chicago's big Columbus Day Parade.

In 2021 Puerto Rican Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa of Chicago’s 35th Ward sponsored replacement official recognition of Columbus Day with  Indigenous People’s Day in 2020  It would not cancel the privately sponsored Columbus Day parade which could continue to roll.  The city sponsored music and cultural events over a two day period.

The original holiday worked as long as the Columbus story told in 19th Century school primers was the only information out there.  But those damn historians insisted on poking around.  Lo and behold it turns out Columbus was not a very nice man.  In fact, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella rewarded him for his voyages with the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and the job of Viceroy to rule the new lands, he was so brutal, venal, and corrupt that the Catholic Priests sent to save the souls of the natives petitioned their Majesties to have him removed.  So did various adventurers and would-be Conquistadors who he slapped in irons for horning in on his exclusive franchise.

In the end he was stripped of his titles and slapped in irons himself.

Columbus was personally responsible for the genocide of the Carib nation and opened the door to centuries of atrocities, exploitation, colonialist oppression, and settler replacement across Americas.

One of the offenses with which he was charged was virtually wiping out the Carib nation which populated most of the islands of the Caribbean by turning them into slaves.  Within ten years the once numerous people were gone and the Spanish had to replace them by buying Black Africans from Arab dealers. 

By the 1960’s Native peoples in both North and South America were protesting celebrations of Columbus and demanding that the people who were his victims should be the honorees, not the thief.

An early Native American protest to Columbus Day--marching at Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive in Chicago after being turned away from the Columbus Day Parade in 1970.    From such modest beginnings a mighty movement grew.

In 1977 at a United Nations sponsored International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas held in Geneva, Switzerland the idea of replacing Columbus Day celebrations with a day honoring Indigenous Peoples was first proposed.  As the 500 year anniversary of the “Discovery” approached, Native delegates to a conference held in Quito, Ecuador in 1990 determined to plan protests and demand recognition.  “Nobody discovered us,” they asserted, “We knew where we were.”

Native groups in California were among the most vocal and organized in the protests in 1992. They persuaded the city of Berkley to become the first to rename the holiday locally to the Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People, better known as Indigenous Peoples Day.  The movement spread across the state.  Although only two other cities followed Berkley’s lead in officially adopting the name for the local holiday, school systems, libraries, and colleges began holding alternative events.  And activists began marching and sometimes disrupting official Columbus Day festivities.

South Dakota, with a large Tribal population, became the first state to jettison Columbus and adopt what they call Native American Day.  That name is also used by several Oklahoma based tribes.  Hawaii replaced Columbus Day with Discoverer’s Day, commemorating the Polynesian discoverers of the Islands. 

Several cities, including Columbus, Ohio have simply dropped the holiday entirely and canceled the traditional parades.  In San Francisco, with its large Italian community axed Columbus and simply declared the day Italian Heritage Day instead but in 2018 also adopted Indigenous Peoples Day.

This year Chicago is one of those cities still going ahead with its giant parade down State Street today.  Mayor Brandon Johnson will conveniently be in England and can duck any controversy.   

Relations between Native American and Italian communities were completely ruptured after statues of Columbus were vandalized in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests that demanded monuments to historic figures who despite other accomplishments were perpetrators of oppression to People of Color and other minorities.  The City removed the statues for “safe keeping” but has waffled for years on restoring at least one in place.  The statues remain in storage and official limbo.

In an attempted gesture of reconciliation the Join Civic Committee of Italian Citizens, sponsor of the parade, invited a Native American group to join in dialogue and officially participate it the parade.  Not everyone, however, was on board.  The invited group, Native American Guardian Association, is based in North Dakota and its dancers are regular participants at pow wows, rodeos, festivals, and parades. The Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative is pushing back and saying that the Dakota group does not represent local sentiment.

 

An Indigenous Peoples Day march in Massachusetts where European settlers and local tribes fought bitterly and most Native peoples were decimated and expelled setting a repeating theme in colonist expansion.

By his year 20 states have joined the parade to replace or co-celebrate Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day in addition to countless municipalities, counties, and other units of local government. 

So far Congress has ignored calls to make a change on the Federal level.