St. Patrick’s Day is a well know Irish celebration that takes place on March 17. St. Patrick’s Day is a cultural and religious celebration that commemorates the death of the Patron Saint of Ireland Saint Patrick, in the United States people celebrate St. Patrick’s day by having parades and festival where the bright green color, leprechauns and four leaf clovers can be seen everywhere from decorations to necklaces and clothing and the high alcohol consumption that characterizes this holiday. But have you ever wondered what this celebration looks like in other parts of the world? If you have then you are in the right place!! Below I will list some of the places where St. Patrick’s is celebrated so follow me around this brief world celebrations showcase!!
- Montserrat
Montserrat is a small volcanic island in the Caribbean and one of the four places in the world where St. Patrick’s Day is a public holiday, but they don’t celebrate for the same reason as everyone else. In Montserrat the people celebrate a slave revolt against the Europeans that had colonized this small island, so instead of having a celebration of booze and festivals about a Saints death they have a week long festival of independence. Their main celebration in this week long festival is called “Masquerade” where the people from Montserrat dress up in colorful hats and they dance Irish jigs.
- Argentina
Buenos Aires is the host city to the largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration in South America, people here go to an annual street party where they dance and have over 50 stands with beer and food. This celebration is made for the 500,000 Irish that live in Argentina and the parade not only celebrates Ireland but they also celebrate Scotland. Another fun fact about the celebration in Argentina is that sometimes the parade doesn’t take place on the 17th but sometimes it takes place on March 10th!
- Japan
As crazy as it may seem St. Patrick’s Day is also celebrated in Japan! The first time this holiday was celebrated in this rising sun country was in 1992 in the Tokyo Parade. While the inclusion of this “Irish Cart” to the Tokyo parade had the purpose of introducing Ireland and their traditions to Japan it became a perfect mix of traditional Japanese style dress with Irish costumes!
- Singapore
If Singapore does a celebration they go big or they go home! And I mean this, for their St. Patrick’s Day celebration they dye the Singapore River Green!! Singapore has the largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Southeast Asia and they celebrate with a parade!
- Australia
Australia hosts their St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Sydney and they have over 80,000 people in this parade, how crazy is this?! But wait, there’s more!! The parade in Sydney is the only one parade outside of Ireland in the world that is organized and funded by the Irish government.
- Russia
Just as Japan, this Irish tradition first came to this country in 1992 and it’s been getting bigger and bigger ever since! Even though there was a period where the parade was canceled the people in Moscow reunited where the event is usually held. The Russians celebrate this day with marching bands and green beer!!
- Ireland
The largest parade in Ireland takes place in Dublin, and their celebration of St. Patrick’s Day lasts all week. Some of the things that they do to celebrate is they have visual and performing arts, the have music and of course they have beer. Ireland is also one of the four places that has St. Patrick’s Day as a public holiday.
- Canada
The Newfoundland and Labrador Canadian province is another of the four places where St. Patrick’s Day is also considered a public holiday. Toronto and Montreal are two of the cities that have the biggest parades in Canada. The first parade in Montreal was celebrated in 1824 however there are earlier records that St. Patrick’s Day first arrive to Canada in 1759 and was brought here by the Irish Soldiers that were serving the British Army.