St Patrick was Scottish...

St Patrick was Scottish...and other fascinating facts!

Are you ready for celebrating St Patrick's Day on March 17th?  It's time to dust off your shamrock and get into the party spirit. Whether you're full-bloodied Irish,or just Irish-ish, it's a time for family gatherings and wild celebrations.

​Here's some fascinating facts about St Patrick, and the day itself, to regale your friends with, and ensure that you are cooler than Finn McCool, and bonnier than the belle of Belfast city, yourself!

1. St Patrick was born in 387 AD in Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland.

2. St Patrick's birth name was Maewyn Succat.

3. He was kidnapped by Irish pirates when he was 14. They enslaved him, forcing him to work as a shepherd, on Slemish mountain in County Antrim.

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4. He escaped confinement when he was 20, headed to the coast, stowed away on a boat bound for Scotland, landing not far from his parents home..

5. Maewyn began training for the priesthood, and when he became a bishop took the name Patricus. He returned to Ireland, spreading the gospel, using the shamrock's trefoil as a teaching aid to represent the Holy Trinity.

6. St Patrick died on the 17th of March 461 AD. He was proclaimed Patron Saint of Ireland in the 7th Century.

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7. The first recorded St Patrick’s Day parade was held in  1737 in Boston, USA.

8. Ireland had their first St Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin, in 1931.

9. In 1961, Stephen Bailey, of the Chicago Journeymen Plumber's Local Union, got permission to turn the Chicago River green for St Patrick's Day - a tradition that's been in place since.

10. St Patrick's Day celebrations can be thirsty work! Worldwide daily sales of the leprechaun's favourite tipple, Guiness, soar from their usual 5 million pints to 13 million pints - Slainte!.

So there you have it - ten facts about St Patrick's Day, all true!

This St Patrick's Day, raise the roof, kiss a colleen, shake your shillelagh stick at a passing leprechaun, and above all else, may you have the most brilliant time, and be blessed with the 'luck o' the Irish'!