Celebrating St. Patrick's Day - Mar 17th

March 17th was St. Patrick's Day and its my first time to witness its fan fare and celebrations. I was off from work that day so I got the chance to check out how Las Vegas celebrate this Irish holiday. I went to the downtown area particularly the Freemont Street and found that a lot of people are indeed celebrating. St. Patrick's Day revelers are in everything green, from fancy hats, t-shirts, pants, dresses, shoes and even hair. All I can see is green, green everywhere. To top it all, most people were drinking some green stuff, I'm not sure what were these but I'm pretty sure these were alcoholic beverages. There were Irish bands playing Irish and Celtic music and people were dancing on the street. Beer are flowing everywhere as restaurants and bars from inside the casinos set-up stalls on the side streets selling booze.

So just what is this celebration called St. Patrick's Day? I went online to check some facts about this event and found the following:

Named for the patron saint of Ireland, March 17th is the day St. Patrick is believed to have died around 493 A.D. A missionary in the 5th century he is credited with converting Ireland to Christianity. Since then, the Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday. But Americans have added their own secular touch to the annual celebration with parades and a lot of fan fare.

The first St. Patrick's Day celebration in America took place in 1737 in Boston. The second took place in Philadelphia in 1780.

But why does America celebrate St. Patrick's Day? I'm not really sure but looking at some facts, here are maybe some of the reasons why:

-- More than 40 percent of U.S. Presidents had Irish ancestors.
-- 70 million people worldwide can claim Irish ancestry.

-- It has been said that there are more Americans of Irish decent living in the U.S. than Irishmen living in Ireland. Americans celebrate the day with such wild abandon that instead of participating in events at home, many people in Ireland turn on the TV and watch the parades!

There you go folks, I guess that answers the question.