- The color originally associated with Patrick was "St. Patrick's blue," not green.- The first St. Patrick's Day parade was not in Ireland, but in the American colonies, when the Irish who were fighting in the British army marched through the streets of New York City in 1762. - The Irish haven't always been so popular -- in the years following that first parade, St. Patrick's Day in the US was mostly about unity and strength among persecuted Irish-American immigrants. The party didn't go global until 1995, when the Irish government started touting St. Patrick's Day as a way of advertising the beauty of the Emerald Isle to the rest of the world. - Only recently has the general public started once again paying more attention to the actual Patrick, the man, the missionary, the hero.
Happy St. Patrick's, wherever you are!