Saint Patrick's Day (March 17th), is an Irish holiday honoring Saint Patrick, the missionary credited with converting the Irish to Christianity (in the A.D. 400's). In America, Saint Patrick's Day is a time to wear green and party. The first American celebration of Saint Patrick's Day was in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1737.

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- Finding a four-leafed clover (that's double the good luck it usually is).
- Wearing green.
(School children pinch classmates who don't wear green on this holiday).
- Kissing the blarney stone.

The color green - because it is the color of spring, Ireland, and the shamrock.

Leprechaun - Irish fairy. The name leprechaun is derived from the old Irish word luchorpan which means "little body."
A leprechaun is a fairy taking the appearance of a miniature old man. Leprechauns are solitary creatures and spend their time making shoes and brogues. If you hear the sound of his hammer when he is at work you know you have found him. If caught, he can be forced to reveal the whereabouts of his treasure, but the captor must keep their eyes on him every second. If the captor's eyes leave the leprechaun, just for a moment, he will vanish.

The Blarney Stone is a stone set in the wall of the Blarney Castle tower in the Irish village of Blarney. Kissing the stone is supposed to bring the kisser the gift of persuasive eloquence (blarney).
The origins of the Blarney Stone's magical properties aren't clear, but one legend says that an old woman cast a spell on the stone to reward a king who had saved her from drowning. Kissing the stone while under the spell gave the king the ability to speak sweetly and convincingly.

Shamrock, a member of the clover family, was used by Patrick to explain the mystery of the Trinity, the three leaves of the shamrock representing the Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). According to Irish legend, Ireland's patron saint chose the shamrock as a symbol of the Trinity of the Christian church. To this day the shamrock remains the national emblem of Ireland and is worn proudly by Irish people the world over on St. Patrick's Day (March 17).
No one can agree on which plant is the shamrock picked by St. Patrick. Many claim it is the small hop clover (Trifolium procumbens), a plant with yellow flowers and blue-green leaflets. Others believe it is a variety of white clover (T. repens) or the black medic (Medicago lupulina). These plants are native to Europe and naturalized in North America. The European wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), which grows in Europe and Asia, is also often considered to be the true shamrock.

Saint Patrick (real name: Maewyn Succat?) was kidnapped at the age of 16 by pirates and sold into slavery. During his 6-year captivity he found strength in his religious faith. After he escaped, Saint Patrick studied religion in Europe,then travelledto Ireland to spread the Christian word there. He used the shamrock, which resembles a three-leafed clover, as a metaphor to explain the concept of the Trinity (father, son, holy spirit). Legend has it that Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland -- that they all went into the sea and drowned. Poor snakes. I don't know why he would want to do this, except that the snake was a revered pagan symbol, and perhaps this was a figurative tale alluding to the fact that he drove paganism out of Ireland.