Saint Patrick's Day

Overview

Saint Patrick’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day, sometimes spelled St. Patty's Day or Saint Paddy's Day, refers to a holiday celebrating Irish heritage. It gained a new meaning when Irish immigrants entered the United States in the early 1700s, and since then has gone on to become a widely celebrated holiday by Americans who have Irish ancestry, as well as those who do not. Since the late 20th century, the holiday has become associated with drinking excessively and stereotypes about the way Americans, particularly white Americans, dress and behave on St. Patrick's Day. Throughout the late 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, memes referencing the holiday and its various cliches or stereotypes have been prevalent online.

Background

March 17th has been known as St. Patrick’s Day since the early 17th century when it was first celebrated as a Christian holiday feast. According to Brittanica,^[1] March 17th is the date of the death of St. Patrick, who was revered in Ireland for converting the Irish to Christianity and is the subject of a number of folktales. St. Patrick’s Day is now widely celebrated as a holiday in the United States, after being adapted by Irish immigrants as a secular holiday to celebrate their heritage in the early 1700s.

Developments

Over the years, the holiday has taken on a new meaning in the United States, with millions of people celebrating Irish heritage, often at social gatherings, particularly involving alcohol. Many statistics report St. Patrick's Day to be one of the most dangerous days of the year for driving due to a sharp increase in drunk driving accidents on the date each year.^[3]

Urban Dictionary^[2] user Nick D posted a definition for Saint Patrick’s Day on March 19th, 2004, gaining 1,870 likes in 20 years, and defining the holiday as:

“A day when you gather around a keg of Guinness and drink like there’s no tomorrow.

Bill Lumbergh: “Yeah, and I’d like to remind you that tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, so if you’d like to, you can go ahead and come to work…uh…shit-faced. Yeah. That’d be greeaat.”

On March 15th, 2021, The TRY Channel posted a YouTube^[5] video entitled "Irish People Try St. Patrick's Day Cocktails," which earned over 818,000 views and 30,000 likes in three years (seen below, left). The video's success led the channel to release numerous other "Irish People Try" videos around St. Patrick's Day in the following years, with topics including St. Patrick's Day shots, St. Patrick's Day drinking games and more.

Some creators online use Saint Patrick's Day to post content related to drinking or performing drinking challenges in order to celebrate the holiday. For instance, the H3 Podcast posted a YouTube^[4] video entitled "We Get Trashed For St. Paddy's Day" on March 17th, 2023, earning over 1.8 million views and 29,000 likes in under a year (seen below, right).

Jokes about the way white people (including both those with Irish heritage and those without it) behave on St. Patrick's Day spread online around the holiday each year. For instance, on March 17th, 2022, TikToker^[6] @annabhamm posted a skit mocking the way white people speak and act on St. Patrick's Day, which earned over 183,000 views and 8,500 likes in about two years (shown below, right).

Another TikTok^[7] skit by @beccaherries shows a white woman wearing green sparkly fake glasses and confusing the Loch Ness Monster with an Irish legend. The video (shown below, left) earned over 134,000 views and 6,300 likes in the one year since it was posted on March 17th, 2023.

Search Interest

External References