American St. Patrick’s Day has lost cultural significance

On March 17 in Ireland, residents gather to celebrate the holiday of Saint Patrick’s Day. From feasts to decorative parades, the spirit of Irish culture flourishes. At the same time, children in the United States set up traps and parade in the fluorescent colors of shamrocks, but they know almost nothing of the meaning behind these celebrations. St. Patrick’s Day in America has become less of a celebration of Irish tradition and more of a pseudo-holiday for the nation.

In Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day started as commemoration of Saint Patrick, who was the primary patron saint of Ireland and is still regarded as one of Ireland’s most iconic figures. The holiday, over time, has become a celebration of Irish culture and religion as a whole, with traditional feasts, parades and honoring the famous shamrocks that was used by Saint Patrick to portray the Holy Trinity.

The celebration is still seen as a sacred emblem of culture in Ireland, but the holiday’s meaning is fading in the U.S. In the past, Irish immigrants who wanted to celebrate the strength and pride of the Irish introduced St. Patrick’ Day to the U.S., but nowadays, most Americans are completely unaware of Ireland’s cultural history or of St. Patrick’s significance. Many high school students view the holiday merely as a day to wear green and pinch those who do not.

Though St. Patrick’s Day is still heavily honored by Ireland’s residents, Americans have warped the holiday beyond recognition, practically making a parody of the original version of this most revered commemoration in Ireland.  

In New York for example, so called “Irish pride” has turned into an event for people to entertain themselves with excessive drinking, often leading to rampant fights and many arrests for public intoxication and criminal actions.

Additionally, the holiday has turned into a commercial enterprise, further widening the gap from its true cultural background. As companies exploit the holiday with the sales of alcohol, decorations and more, the holiday about the saint who lived 1,600 years ago has truly been lost.

Due to such circumstances, the integrity of the once prosperous and majestic Irish culture has truly faded. People focus more on the entertainment aspect than their own cultural background and it causes people to question their ethnic history.

As the holiday recently occurred on March 17, we begin to wonder — does society really care about their ethnicity, or has history become of less importance as we move into a more industrialized age? Society must embrace its cultural aspects before all of history is lost.