For a few hours each year, millions of Irish and non-Irish commemorate the life of a 1500-year-old saint in a boisterous display of parading and revelry, festooned in the shamrock and emerald green. The Wearing of the Green captures the dramatic story of how March 17 was transformed from a stuffy dinner for Ireland's religious elite to the world's most public ethnic festival.
Long celebrated with more fanfare in New York than in Dublin, the holiday has been criticized for its loss of religious meaning, commercialism, and embarrassing rituals of drunkenness. But it has also served to unite Irish emigrants from America to Australia to Argentina. More recently it has become a flash point for political divides within the Irish community.
The Wearing of the Green is the first book to chronicle the full history of St. Patrick's Day-from its medieval origins to plastic leprechauns and green beer-exploring the shared heritage of the Irish through the evolution of this amazing holiday.