Be­hind the scenes of St. Patrick’s Day Fes­tiv­i­ties with Maryville Stu­dents

Every year, the world gets a lit­tle bit greener on St. Patrick’s Day. This year, peo­ple cel­e­brated its 50th an­niver­sary with fes­ti­vals, sham­rocks, lep­rechauns and more. Al­though most love to cel­e­brate the day, not many peo­ple know the true mean­ing of the hol­i­day. 

St. Patrick’s Day is cel­e­brated for a man named Saint Patrick, who was a pa­tron of Ire­land and was taken in as a slave to work for raiders. Soon af­ter he es­caped, he be­came a mis­sion­ary like his fa­ther and grand­fa­ther. Leg­end has is that there are no snakes in Ire­land any­more be­cause Saint Patrick rid them. 

Every­body has dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions for the hol­i­day, and Maryville stu­dents are in­cluded. Kris­ten Sparks, a ju­nior psy­chol­ogy ma­jor,  is one of the peo­ple who at­tended the fes­tiv­i­ties, Sat­ur­day March 16. “This year was the first year we were able to go out. With soc­cer and and school, there was­n’t a lot for me to do in the past years.” Sparks said, “Typ­i­cally we would just go to a restau­rant or some­thing fun like that, but this year was a lot dif­fer­ent. I got to ex­pe­ri­ence the whole St. Louis crowd. I re­ally liked see­ing all the dif­fer­ent things that were be­ing of­fered in the city with this hol­i­day.”

Veron­ica Steibel, a fifth year Oc­cu­pa­tional Ther­apy ma­jor joined the down­town party too. “ I’ve gone a few years and I love the en­vi­ron­ment. It kind of re­minds me of Mardi Gras, but I think St. Patrick’s Day is a lot more fun.” Steibel said, “There are more things to do that go along with the hol­i­day which shows a lot about our city. I love to go and see what it’s go­ing to be like and see if its the same way as it was the year be­fore. I went to the bar in the evening on Sat­ur­day in the Grove called, At­ti­tudes. Which is a drag show bar and I thought that was a fun way to wrap up a great day. My fam­ily and I don’t have any tra­di­tions but we all love to cel­e­brate the day.” 

Ac­cord­ing to Time and Date, there are many food tra­di­tions that peo­ple prac­tice for St. Patrick’s day:

• Irish brown bread.
• Corned beef and cab­bage.
• Beef and Guin­ness pie.
• Irish cream choco­late mousse cake.
• Irish cof­fee.
• Irish potato champ, also known as poundies, cally or pandy.
• Irish stew.
• Irish potato soup.

St. Patrick’s day is full of tra­di­tions, pa­rades and time spent with fam­ily and friends. We have been cel­e­brat­ing it for 50 years, and there is prob­a­bly no chance in it stop­ping. 

Share with us how you cel­e­brated St. Patrick’s Day on our In­sta­gram and Twit­ter!