Why do people celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the U.S.A.?

Answer 1

Due to the Great Famine in the mid-1800s in Ireland, many Irish came to America for new opportunities. Since the numbers of Irish in the U.S. grew so rapidly and most of the immigrants were poor and uneducated, the Irish encountered the same sort of racial prejudice that many new immigrants to the United States do. In order to face the challenges of living in a new country, the Irish immigrants banded together to celebrate the traits that they held in common: their Roman Catholic heritage, their dedication to St. Patrick, and their national myth of being survivors despite the many hardships that they had encountered over the centuries. Since the Irish are such a dominant part of U.S. life, so is St. Patrick's Day.

Answer 2

Many Roman Catholics have immigrated to the US over the years, and most likely they brought the holiday with them, and it just grew in popularity till it became a general US holiday, just as Christmas did, which was also originally a Roman Catholic holiday.

Answer 3

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, and there's a substantial Irish component to the cultural mix in the United States. So it's not horribly surprising that we celebrate it.

Where I went to graduate school, it was mainly regarded as an excuse to have a big party and drink green beer. The "any excuse for a party" reason helps explain why we also celebrate Cinco de Mayo, which as I understand it is not regarded as all that big a holiday in Mexico outside of a relatively small region near where the events being celebrated actually took place.

Answer 4

The 1800s saw an extremely large influx of Irish immigrants to the U.S., and so, today much of the population can claim Irish roots, which they celebrate by observing St. Patrick's Day.

Answer 5

Because of the large amount of Irish people and people of Irish descent that live in America.

Answer 6

There are many, many people living in the United States of Irish descent.

Answer 7

Because a lot of them came from Ireland.