St Patrick’s Day is 17 March, Ireland’s national day. Here’s how to celebrate St Patrick’s Day at home, out and about, or from abroad. You can cook bacon and cabbage, bake soda bread and make an Irish coffee. Go to a parade, a pub session or Mass, learn a few words of Irish, or trace your Irish family for free.
Ask most Irish people what they do on St Patrick’s Day and the answer involves less green beer than you’d think. It’s Mass, a local parade, a big dinner and maybe a pint. Abroad, it’s a bigger party.
This guide covers how to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in 36 ideas. They’re grouped so you can find what suits you: the kitchen, the kids, a night out, or the Irish far from home.
St Patrick’s Day 2027 falls on a Wednesday. Here’s my St Patrick’s Day countdown.
Jump to:
- St Patrick’s Day at home: food and drink
- St Patrick’s Day activities for kids
- Out and about
- Learn something
- Give back and connect
- Online and from abroad
- St Patrick’s Day traditions in Ireland and abroad
- How to celebrate respectfully
- St Patrick’s Day FAQ
- More St Patrick’s Day reading
St Patrick’s Day at home: food and drink
St Patrick’s Day falls in Lent. Traditionally it was a day off from the fasting, so a big dinner has always been part of it.
1. Cook bacon and cabbage
This is the meal most Irish families would recognise. Boiled bacon (a cured pork joint, more like ham than American bacon), cabbage, potatoes and a white parsley sauce. Plain food, done well.
2. Or corned beef, with the backstory
Corned beef is fine too. Smithsonian Magazine explains that Irish immigrants in New York bought it from Jewish butchers, as it was cheaper than bacon there. In Ireland, bacon or lamb is still the usual dinner.
3. Make a stew
A pot of stew feeds a crowd. Try my lamb Irish stew recipe or a beef and Guinness stew. A shepherd’s pie works too.
4. Bake soda bread
Soda bread isn’t ancient. Bread soda is usually dated to Irish kitchens in the 1840s. It baked well in a pot over the fire, with no yeast needed. It takes about ten minutes to mix.
5. Make colcannon or potato cakes
Colcannon is mashed potato with cabbage or kale, butter and scallions. The name probably comes from the Irish cál ceannann, white-headed cabbage, though dictionaries call the second part uncertain. Leftover mash makes good Irish potato cakes.
6. Start with a full Irish breakfast
Rashers (back bacon), sausages, black pudding (a blood sausage) and white pudding, eggs, tomato and toast. A fry before the parade sets you up for a long day.
7. Make an Irish coffee
Hot coffee, Irish whiskey, brown sugar and lightly whipped cream floated on top. My Irish coffee recipe covers the bit everyone gets wrong: the cream.
8. Drown the shamrock
An old custom says the shamrock you wore all day went into your last drink. The National Museum of Ireland records it as Póta Phádraig, Patrick’s Pot. You toast the saint, then throw the shamrock over your shoulder for luck. Kids can do it with lemonade. Pick a line from my Irish toasts first.
St Patrick’s Day activities for kids
9. Make a St Patrick’s cross badge
This is the real Irish craft, and it’s older than any leprechaun trap. The National Museum of Ireland says children once wore cross badges on the day. Boys made theirs from coloured paper, girls made ribbon rosettes. Card, crayons and a safety pin will do.
10. Go on a shamrock hunt
Send the kids out to find shamrock. The twist: nobody agrees which plant it is. A 1988 survey by Charles Nelson of the National Botanic Gardens found lesser clover most popular, then white clover. My shamrock guide explains more.
11. Tell some terrible jokes
Children love a groaner. I have a whole page of St Patrick’s Day jokes clean enough for the dinner table, and more funny Irish jokes for the grown-ups.
12. Hold a kitchen céilí
A céilí (KAY-lee) is a night of Irish group dancing, with simple steps anyone can follow. Push back the table, put on some reels and spin each other round. Nobody’s judging.
13. Tell the real Patrick story at bedtime
Patrick was a Briton, not Irish. In his own Confessio he says he was taken captive to Ireland at about sixteen. He escaped, then came back as a missionary. It’s a better story than the snakes, which are legend. Ireland had no snakes to banish.
14. Watch The Secret of Kells
This 2009 animated film, led by the Kilkenny studio Cartoon Saloon, is about the making of the Book of Kells. It’s beautiful, and sneaks in some history.
Out and about
15. Go to a parade, or march in one
Most towns in Ireland have a parade, and so do cities all over the world. Small-town parades are often the most fun: tractors, scouts, the local band. If you belong to an Irish club, ask about marching.
16. Find a session in an Irish pub
A session (seisiún in Irish) is an informal gathering of traditional musicians in a pub. Anyone who can play joins in, and everyone else listens. Go early, sit near the music and don’t talk over the slow airs. My guide to legendary Irish pubs has some famous ones.
17. Go to Mass
For Catholics in Ireland, 17 March is a holy day of obligation, according to catholicireland.net. Many people go to Mass in the morning. The hymn Hail Glorious Saint Patrick is a fixture.
18. Run a St Patrick’s 5K
Plenty of cities hold a St Patrick’s fun run in March. It earns you the stew later.
19. Take an Irish dance class
Riverdance began as the interval act at the Eurovision Song Contest at the Point Theatre, Dublin, on 30 April 1994. Try sean-nós, a solo, improvised style associated with Connemara, or set dancing, a social dance for four couples. Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the traditional music body, has more than 400 branches worldwide, and many run classes.
20. See the landmarks go green
Tourism Ireland’s Global Greening began in 2010 with the Sydney Opera House and Auckland’s Sky Tower. In 2026 more than 400 sites went green, including the Empire State Building and Niagara Falls, as Travel Extra reported. Here’s why we wear green.
Learn something
21. Learn a few words in Irish
The Irish for St Patrick’s Day is Lá Fhéile Pádraig. To wish one person a happy one, say “Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit” (law AY-leh PAW-drig SUN-a dwit). For a group, swap duit for daoibh (deev, or yeev in some regions). The teanglann.ie site has free audio. For English wishes, see my Happy St Patrick’s Day messages.
22. Join in Seachtain na Gaeilge
Seachtain na Gaeilge (SHOCK-tin na GAYL-geh) is Irish Language Week. Despite the name, it runs from 1 to 17 March. Conradh na Gaeilge started it in 1903 and calls it the largest Irish-language festival in the world. Many events are online.
23. Read the real history
Patrick wasn’t even the first bishop sent to Ireland. The chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine records that Pope Celestine sent Palladius in 431. The shamrock-and-Trinity story came much later too. Read the real story behind St Patrick’s Day, then try my St Patrick’s Day facts on the family.
24. Put on Irish music
Start with my St Patrick’s Day playlist. Find a fiddle and accordion album, or a sean-nós singer. And yes, there’s always Danny Boy. Its words were written by an Englishman, Frederic Weatherly, to an old Irish air.
25. Hold an Irish film night
An Irish film night is an easy way to mark the day at home
Leap Year is an American postcard version of Ireland. Even P.S. I Love You, from an Irish novel, is a Hollywood take. Try The Commitments (1991), Michael Collins (1996), Once (2007), Black ’47 (2018) or Flora and Son (2023). Then watch An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl, 2022). It was the first Irish-language film nominated for an Oscar. More in my best Irish movies list.
26. Read Irish poetry
Two of Ireland’s four Nobel literature winners, Yeats and Heaney, were poets. Start with my St Patrick’s Day poems, then a book of Yeats or Heaney.
Give back and connect
27. Visit an Irish cultural centre
The Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago was founded in 1976. New York’s Irish Arts Center opened its new home on 11th Avenue in 2021. Many run céilís, language classes and talks around 17 March.
28. Find a GAA club abroad
The GAA, the Gaelic Athletic Association, runs Gaelic football and hurling. Its sister bodies run camogie (women’s hurling) and ladies’ football, and the three plan to merge. There are over 500 GAA clubs outside Ireland. Go and watch a match. They’ll probably sell you a raffle ticket.
29. Trace your Irish family
It’s free. irishgenealogy.ie has Irish civil birth, marriage and death records. Births go online after 100 years, marriages after 75 and deaths after 50. Catholic parish registers to 1880 are on registers.nli.ie. The 1901, 1911 and 1926 censuses are free on the National Archives of Ireland site, nationalarchives.ie.
The big news is the 1926 Census, released free in April 2026. It covers nearly three million people in the Irish Free State (today’s Republic), the Irish Post reported. Northern Ireland isn’t included. Start with my guide to Irish surnames.
30. Give to an Irish charity
Consider the Irish Cancer Society, Enable Ireland (disability services), Pieta (suicide and self-harm support) or Trócaire (overseas aid in Africa, Asia, Central America and the Middle East).
31. Ring someone at home
If you’re Irish abroad, call your mother. A text with a shamrock in it counts, but a call counts more.
32. Wear real shamrock
The botanist Caleb Threlkeld recorded the shamrock-wearing custom in 1726. Many Irish people still pin a sprig to a coat. Irish shops abroad sometimes sell little pots of it in March.
Online and from abroad
Wherever you are, Ireland is only a click away on 17 March
33. Watch the Dublin parade online
RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, showed the 2026 Dublin parade live on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Check RTÉ Player nearer the day, as what you can watch from abroad varies.
34. Take an online Irish class
LetsLearnIrish.com has free phrase guides and a free monthly workshop. Ten minutes a day adds up by 17 March.
35. Send a blessing or a gift
Send someone one of my St Patrick’s Day blessings, or post them one of my picks of Irish gifts. Order early if it’s travelling far.
36. Raise a toast on a video call
Get the family on a call across the time zones. Someone will be on breakfast and someone on their last drink. Toast anyway.
St Patrick’s Day traditions in Ireland and abroad
In Ireland
The old St Patrick’s Day traditions here are simple: Mass, shamrock on the coat, a local parade and a big dinner.
St Patrick’s Day became a public holiday under the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903. For decades it was a quiet, holy day. The Intoxicating Liquor Act 1927 put it alongside Christmas Day and Good Friday as days pubs had to stay shut. That only changed with the Intoxicating Liquor Act 1960.
The Dublin St Patrick’s Festival only began in 1996, as a single day, and has run five days since 2006. The festival lists 2027 as Saturday 13 to Wednesday 17 March, with the parade on the 17th.
Abroad
The diaspora made it a party. Spanish colonial records suggest a St Patrick’s procession in St Augustine, Florida, in 1601, according to historian J. Michael Francis. Boston’s Charitable Irish Society was founded at a dinner on 17 March 1737.
The first recorded parade in New York was on 17 March 1762, by Irish soldiers in the British Army. Today it marches up Fifth Avenue, past St Patrick’s Cathedral. Chicago has dyed its river green since 1962. The dye goes in as an orange powder, WTTW reports.
Most years the Taoiseach (Ireland’s prime minister) presents a bowl of shamrock at the White House. It began in 1952, when Ambassador John Hearne sent shamrock to President Truman. The US Census Bureau says 32.4 million Americans claimed Irish ancestry in 2024. Read more on the Irish diaspora in America.
How to celebrate respectfully
Everyone’s welcome on St Patrick’s Day. Just mind a few things.
It’s Paddy, not Patty
Paddy comes from Pádraig, the Irish form of Patrick. Patty is a girl’s name, or a burger. In Ireland we say Paddy’s Day, St Patrick’s Day or Lá Fhéile Pádraig.
Skip the “drunk Irish” costumes
The Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish-American Catholic group founded in 1836, has campaigned against “drunk Irish” merchandise for years. In 2019 it petitioned Amazon about it. Most Irish people feel the same. A green jumper (sweater) is grand. A shirt calling us drunks isn’t.
Leprechauns are fine, caricature isn’t
Leprechauns are part of real Irish folklore, and kids love them. Red beards, fake brogues and brawling are another matter.
Drink sensibly, or not at all
You don’t need a pint to celebrate. A cup of tea and a slice of soda bread is just as Irish.
St Patrick’s Day FAQ
What do Irish people actually do on St Patrick’s Day?
Mass, the local parade, then home for a big dinner like bacon and cabbage. Some go to the pub afterwards. The big crowds are mostly in Dublin.
What are some easy things to do on St Patrick’s Day?
Cook an Irish dinner, go to a local parade or find a pub session. At home, try a kitchen céilí, an Irish film night or a few words of Irish. There are 36 St Patrick’s Day ideas above.
Why do people wear green on St Patrick’s Day?
Green, and the shamrock, are said to have become Irish nationalist symbols around 1798, which gave us “the wearing of the green”. Oddly, the colour once tied to St Patrick was a light blue, known as St Patrick’s blue.
Why do Americans eat corned beef on St Patrick’s Day?
It’s an Irish-American habit from New York, where corned beef was cheaper than bacon. In Ireland, bacon and cabbage is still more usual.
Is St Patrick’s Day a public holiday in Ireland?
Yes. It became a bank holiday under the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903. Most schools and offices close, and towns hold parades.
How can I celebrate St Patrick’s Day if I’m not Irish?
Exactly the way the Irish do. Nobody checks passports at the parade. Turn up, be curious and mind your manners.
More St Patrick’s Day reading
- The Real Story Behind St Patrick’s Day
- St Patrick’s Day Facts
- St Patrick’s Day Music
- The Best St Patrick’s Day Jokes
- Top 10 Irish Toasts
- St Patrick’s Day Blessings
- The Shamrock: Symbol of St Patrick’s Day
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