St. Patrick was a Christian missionary. He established several churches and monasteries throughout Ireland, converting Irish people to Christianity. After spending more than thirty years evangelizing Christianity in Ireland, St. Patrick passed away. The date of his death is believed to be March 17, 461 CE.
St Patrick’s Day has been observed in Ireland since the 10th century. The first St. Patrick's day parade on record took place on March 17, 1601 in Spanish Colonial America (what is now Florida). Boston held its first St. Patrick's Day parade in 1737 and New York in 1762. During the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-1800s, many more Irish people immigrated to America, increasing the popularity of the holiday and the New York parade grew into the biggest in the world.
St. Patrick was not Irish. Although St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, he was actually not Irish. St. Patrick was a Roman citizen, born in Roman Britain in the late fourth century. He came to Ireland as a teenager when he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and enslaved for six years. He escaped, and found passage on a ship back to Britain. Years later, he went back to Ireland, this time as a missionary to proclaim the gospel.
The shamrock is a symbol of St. Patrick’s Day. According to mythology, St. Patrick taught the mainly pagan Irish people the Christian idea of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit using the three leaves of the shamrock. Since then, the shamrock has become a symbol of Ireland and St. Patrick's Day.
Until 1798, blue was the color associated with St. Patrick’s Day. Originally, blue was the color associated with St. Patrick's Day, but in 1798, the year of the Irish Rebellion, green replaced blue as the color of choice to represent the green of the Irish countryside.