Thursday, October 25, 2012

St Patrick´s Day: Green Everywhere

By Alejandra Fabela Martinez
Ireland is an island located in Europe. More than the ninety percent of the Irish are Catholic. The influence of the religion in topics like divorce, abortion, the control of birthrate and social topics is very important. The duration of this festival is five days.
The music and the dances are an important tradition of this country. Also there is a very important day “St Patrick´s day”. It´s a festival celebrated on March 17th. Since 1903, this day was made a public and official day in Ireland; Nowadays St Patrick is the most famous saint in the entire world. For this day people have to wear green cloths and is very common to eat dishes with cabbage and Irish beverages.
St Patrick was a missioner and a preacher; he is considered the introductory of the religion to the island.
There are four principal components of this festival, the Leprechaun, the beer, the clover and St Patrick. Leprechaun is the goblin and is a typical character of the Irish mythology.
On March 17th, people don´t eat meat, but the traditional dish is the corn beef, that is raw meat. Also the beer is the most popular beverage.
Bands of bagpipes are the most popular for the festival, Celt music is the official hymn of this party. Instruments like violin, Irish bagpipes, flutes tin whistle and the “bodhran” or drum. The traditional dance to accompanist the music is the Irish “step dance”; a unique dance with difficult leg movements while the body is static.
St Patrick’s Day is one of the most important traditions in Ireland, when Irish celebrated during five days full of green and beer, also the bagpipes and the step dance are protagonist of the party, but the mean reason of this party is to celebrate Saint Patrick and all the Catholics and no Catholics celebrated it.
It is not only for the religion. It is because this tradition with special characteristics of Irish people is a big part of their Culture and that things made Ireland unique, and different to other countries.
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