March 17

St Patrick's Day 2008
After donning on a bit of green and cutting out green hearts for "clovers" in home-school, I read today that St Patty's Day was actually reassigned to the 15th this year. St. Patrick's Day on the 17th was superseded by Easter Week. I thought Easter came unusually early this year. I didn't know how unusual. The last time Holy Week overlapped March 17th was Palm Sunday in 1940 and the next time will be in the year 2160, according to Wikipedia.
I gleaned some further knowledge:
St Patrick was a Britain-born Roman, captured and enslaved by Irish raiders as a boy. He escaped six years later and then returned as a missionary to the Irish. Legend has it that he used the three-leaf shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity. Wearing green most likely referred to wearing a shamrock pinned to one's clothing.


As a public holiday, we joined the fellow Americans and Peoples of the world with an excuse to celebrate our Irish blood however thick or thin it runs. We continued our day accented in green, a boiled dinner, and green-tinted tapioca pudding for dessert.