St. Patrick's Day Countdown

Parades, green rivers, and the world’s friendliest party.

How many days until St. Patrick's Day?

Live countdown to St. Patrick's Day 2027

About St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick’s Day celebrates Ireland’s patron saint and has grown into a worldwide celebration of Irish culture — parades, shamrocks, and a sea of green in cities from Dublin to Chicago to Sydney.

The story behind St. Patrick's Day

The man being celebrated was not even Irish — Patrick was a Romano-British teenager kidnapped by pirates and enslaved in Ireland for six years. After escaping home, he returned as a bishop, and the folklore credits him with two miracles: driving the snakes out of Ireland (there were never any snakes — the story is a metaphor for driving out paganism) and explaining the Holy Trinity with a shamrock.

The color was originally blue. St. Patrick's blue appears on early heraldry, and it still trims the Irish presidential flag. Green took over with the shamrock rebellion symbolism of the 18th century — "wearing the green" became a political statement — and Chicago pushed it further in 1962 by pouring dye into the entire river.

The global party is largely an Irish-American invention. Boston held its first parade in 1737, New York formalized its in 1762, and today more than 100 countries hold celebrations — a country of five million people whose holiday feeds a hundred million partiers.

St. Patrick's Day dates 2027–2030

St. Patrick's Day facts

• St. Patrick's Day is fixed on March 17, the traditional death date of Ireland's patron saint.
• The first St. Patrick's Day parade was held in the American colonies (New York, 1762) — not Ireland.
• Chicago has dyed its river green every year since 1962, using about 40 pounds of vegetable dye.
• Corned beef and cabbage is an Irish-American invention; in Ireland, bacon was the traditional meal.