Happy St. Patrick’s Day

You don’t have to be Irish to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, AKA the Feast of St. Patrick.
It started as a religious feast and holy day in Ireland in 1631, commemorating the anniversary of the death of a 5th-century saint who spread Christianity to the Emerald Isle.

Today, it’s celebrated worldwide, from Australia to Norway to Dubai. In America, it has evolved into something of a party day, complete with parades, Irish traditional music, bagpipers, marching bands, step dancers, kegs of Guinness beer, and the wearing of green attire including four-leaf clovers.

Ironically, the traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal of corned beef and cabbage began among Irish-Americans living in lower Manhattan’s slums. There, they bought salted meat at a penny a pound from sailing ships that had returned to the East Coast from tea trading runs in China.