HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY GUYS & DOLLS

Happy St. Paddy's Day

Thanks to Pinterest and Amy Locurto over at http://www.livinglocurto.com/ this weekend Sunni Bunny and I decided to make these cards to hand out to her BFF's at school. Although her school has a strict "no pinching" policy we still thought it would be cute to make some green loom bracelets for St. Paddy's Day.

 

**The card says, "Happy St. Patrick's Day, Lucky You, I made you this to avoid a pinch**

 

Sorry about the blurry picture above. I was in a hurry getting Sunni ready for school and I wanted to get a picture of at least one of her cards since I am sure they will all be gone by this afternoon!

 

Below is the image that caught our eye on Pinterest. We printed the card on cardstock weight paper and I helped Sunni make two small slits on each side to display the loom bracelet. Sunni put the opened bracelet thru the slits then used an "S" clamp to attach on the inside of the card.

 

Here are a few St. Paddy's Day fun facts to share with your friends today

Special thanks to National Geographic-nationalgeographic.com

 

 

No Snakes in Ireland?

A very popular St. Patrick myth is the claim that he banished snakes from Ireland. It's true no snakes exist on the island today, Luther College's Freeman said—but they never did. Ireland, after all, is surrounded by icy waters—much too cold to allow snakes to migrate from Britain or anywhere else.

Since snakes often represent evil in literature, "when Patrick drives the snakes out of Ireland, it is symbolically saying he drove the old, evil, pagan ways out of Ireland [and] brought in a new age," Freeman said. The snake myth, the shamrock story, and other tales were likely spread by well-meaning monks centuries after St. Patrick's death, Freeman said.

 

 

 

 

St. Patrick's Day: Made in America?

Until the 1970s, St. Patrick's Day in Ireland was a minor religious holiday. A priest would acknowledge the feast day, and families would celebrate with a big meal, but that was about it.

"St. Patrick's Day was basically invented in America by Irish-Americans," Freeman said.

Timothy Meagher, an expert in Irish-American history at Washington, D.C.'s Catholic University, said in 2009 Irish charitable organizations originally celebrated St. Patrick's Day with banquets in places such as Boston, Savannah, and Charleston, South Carolina. Eighteenth-century Irish soldiers fighting with the British in the U.S. Revolutionary War held the first St. Patrick's Day parades. Some soldiers, for example, marched through New York City in 1762 to reconnect with their Irish roots.

Other parades followed in the years and decades after, including well-known celebrations in Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, primarily in flourishing Irish immigrant communities.

"It becomes a way to honor the saint but also to confirm ethnic identity and to create bonds of solidarity," said Meagher.

 

 

Dyeing the River Green for St. Patrick's Day

Sometime in the 19th century, as St. Patrick's Day parades were flourishing, wearing the color green became a show of commitment to Ireland, Meagher said. In 1962 the show of solidarity took a spectacular turn in Chicago when the city decided to dye a portion of the Chicago River green.

The tradition started when parade organizer Steve Bailey, head of a plumbers union, noticed how a dye used to trace possible sources of river pollution had stained a colleague's overalls a brilliant green, according to greenchicagoriver.com. Bailey thought, Why not use the dye to turn the whole river green on St. Patrick's Day? So began the tradition. The environmental impact of the dye is minimal compared with pollution from sewage-treatment plants, Margaret Frisbie, the executive director of the advocacy group Friends of the Chicago River, said in 2010. Rather than advising against the dye, her group focuses on turning the Chicago River into a welcoming habitat full of fish, herons, turtles, and beavers. If the river becomes a wildlife haven, the thinking goes, Chicagoans won't want to dye their river green. "Our hope is that, as the river continues to improve, ultimately people can get excited about celebrating St. Patrick's Day different ways," she said.