Whether it’s a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” T-shirt or a delicious spoonful of “Lucky Charms” cereal, Americans have their own thoughts about what represents St. Patrick’s Day.

“Probably green and leprechauns and four leaf clovers!” freshman Sonal Pai said.

“Pots of gold? Irish? Pinching people?” junior Shreyas Doshi added.

To most people those words capture the essence of St. Patrick’s day: a holiday when people run around in green, searching for four leaf clovers and chasing leprechauns. Sound familiar?
According to a 2009 survey, to 1 in 5 Americans, St. Patrick’s Day is just a day to get drunk. About 1 in 10 go to parades while 1 in 13.58 go to parties.

But as publicized as drinking alcohol and pinching people are, these are only the commercialized aspects of a holiday that started out as a religious event.

The belief is that St. Patrick, who is now the patron saint of Ireland, started out as a slave brought to Ireland. After he escaped, he returned to Ireland to bring Christianity to the people. From around the 10th century, the Irish celebrate his Roman Catholic feast day on March 17.

Wearing green

The traditional color of St. Patrick’s Day is not green, but blue. Green just gradually became the color associated with the holiday because of the shamrocks, or three leaf clovers, that were symbols of St. Patrick himself.

Pinching people for not wearing green started out in America in the 1700s because of the idea that those not wearing green were visible to leprechauns. Leprechauns tended to pinch humans, so to warn others of these creatures, people decided to pinch each other too.

Four-leaf clovers

In fact, four-leaf clovers are not traditionally associated with St. Patrick’s Day at all. Instead, three-leaf clovers, or shamrocks, represented a certain philosophy of the Irish which was represented by St. Patrick. These three-leaf clovers were considered items of good luck and good fortune.

Leprechauns

At least at some point in their preschool or elementary school careers, most students have made little leprechaun traps in hopes of snaring one of these Irish fairies. Leprechauns were hunted by treasure seekers who desired the pot of gold hidden by the leprechauns.
Apparently, a close eye had to be kept on these mythical creatures after they were caught because looking away for a second could make them vanish forever.

Although more than just another Americanized holiday, most of what Americans today celebrate as aspects of St. Patrick’s Day do indeed have roots in the original purposes of the day.