I know that modern day Australia was basically founded on the blood and sweat of Irishmen and my own dad is well into his Irish roots, yet St Patrick's Day seems about as relevant to me as Halloween. That is, not at all.
To see if there was anything interesting I could talk about in relation to St Patrick's Day I did what I always do in these situations: look at Wikipedia. Reading the Wikipedia page it became obvious to me that I've considered writing about this personally meaningless day before, but clearly the meaningless has always won out. But the story of Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland and using the shamrock to teach the people of the holy trinity all seemed familiar. This time reading through though I noticed this, "Christians also attend church services and the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday's tradition of alcohol consumption." Of course it was interesting to learn that this is why so much beer is drunk on March 17th rather than because all Irish are alcoholics. Allegedly.
But I probably wouldn't be wasting your time and mine babbling about this day here if I hadn't scrolled down to the very bottom of the Wikipedia page and seen photos of celebrations around the world and in Ireland. And it was there in a photo of an Irish St Patrick's day parade that I saw photographic proof of leprechauns! I know I can barely believe it myself, but you can see for yourself below! Real leprechauns leading the parade.
So thanks world for celebrating St Patrick's Day, without you I never would have found this photo and learned that leprechauns are real and magic happens.
