I wish you the luck of the Irish!! Are you wearing your green (or as I recently learned, orange - for those who are Protestant?) I am and so are the kids. This has been a big day for me since I was a child. I lived in Savannah, Ga. until age 7, and there they have the 2nd largest parade in the US. It has been an event for 185 years, and many of the schools participate with children walking the parade as part of their classes. They have even on occasion dyed the Savannah River green as well as the city fountains in honor of the day.
So do Germans celebrate this event? The answer is yes and no. Most of the Germans I have asked here just shake their heads. It is not a part of their culture or tradition, but in Munich, enough of an Irish (or Irish want-to-be) contention exist to actually have a parade. Events in Munich began in 1996 with a small parade and about 2250 total official and unofficial participants. The event steadily grew, and today, it is one of the largest parades in Europe. But I am not surprised - any chance for the Germans to have a parade and then celebrate afterwards with a drink, regardless of color, seems to be the way to go here. :-) This year, the parade was on March 15th to accommodate everyone's working schedule.
So just who is this St. Patrick and what is the fuss all about? St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. He is thought to be a man who was a British born Christian missionary at the time that Rome ruled England, around 387 AD. He was enslaved in Ireland for six years. He escaped and devoted his life to the church and returned to Ireland to minister to the people there and to speak out about slavery. The possibility exists that the saintly traits attributed to Patrick were actually the doings of two different men, both from around the same time frame. Two letters that are thought to have been written by St. Patrick still exist. One gave the account of the writer's life and purpose in the land and the other stated that he had excommunicated men based on their slave taking. Through legend, he is attributed to using the shamrock to teach about the Holy Trinity to those he was converting, thus the modern association with the clover leaf. The day known as St. Patrick's Day did not exist until the early 1600s, when the local church canonised him. Formally, the Catholic church has never recognized him as an official saint.
Back to the color, the original color associated with St. Patrick's feast day was blue. Over the years, the idea of "wearing of the green" which was a shamrock to represent nationalism, became all things green. Orange is the color associated with the Protestant movement of the Orangemen who formed out of support of King William III of Orange in a fierce struggle for Protestant over Catholic rule of England, Scotland and Ireland with James II. Today, the Orangemen are still a strong political group with a strong following in Northern Ireland and in other parts of the world due to Irish immigrations. (It should be noted that the Orangemen do have a movement going to "put straight" St. Patrick's allegiances with Protestantism instead of the Catholic church, although given the time that the Reformation happened, I hardly see how they have a leg to stand on.)
Today, the holiday is celebrated across the globe. Some of the biggest displays of Irish nationalism and Irish-for-a-Day events are held in Montreal, Canada; the island of Montserrat, which was founded by Irish refugees; New Zealand; Boston (site of the 1st parade), New York City, and Savannah in the USA; and Sydney, Australia, which claims the largest parade in the Southern Hemisphere. But even countries like Russia and China also have some celebrations to commemorate the day.
The word for the day is green: grün (groon with a trumpeted oo).
The question for the day today is "Which famous airplane designer came from right here in Kempten?"
Bis Morgen,
Frau Spitzer
