Reply #167: St. Patrick's day has never been an exclusive Irish holiday

[TorchTheWitch]

It's a Christian feast day of St. Patrick who was British and born of Roman parents. He was captured by Celtic raiders around the age of sixteen and brought to Ireland to work as a slave, after about six years he escaped and went back to Britain where he became a priest. At some point in his life he went back to Ireland to convert the Celtics to Christianity. He died in Ireland supposedly on March 17th sometime in the mid-400's, and is buried in northern Ireland where he did much of his missionary work.

Ireland embraced St. Patrick as one of its patron saints for his missionary work in Ireland converting Celtics to Christianity. Though many Protestant Irish do celebrate St. Patrick's Day many don't as they don't embrace Catholic saints (although at the time Roman Catholic was the only Christian faith). Many people in countries throughout Europe celebrated St. Patrick's Day and always did by religious tradition... celebrations of saints feast days were compulsory for all Christians throughout Europe right through the middle ages, and Christians brought that tradition into other lands. Celebrating St. Patrick's feast day was and is only more widely embraced by Ireland and those anywhere of Irish decent because of his missionary work in Ireland.