6 interesting St. Patrick’s Day facts

Take a look at today's date on your desk calendar. Recognize the holiday? It's St. Patrick's Day! To celebrate, I've gathered some lesser-known facts that you can learn and use to wow colleagues and clients.

1. It's not St. Patty's Day
Many people don't realize this, but the correct spelling of the holiday is "St. Paddy's Day." It's a good thing to know when you go to post on your business' social media accounts. Just remember, you can always hit the "edit" button on a Facebook status to fix it if you've already posted with the American "Patty's." Tweets aren't quite as forgiving, so you'll have to delete the post and then redo it with the correct spelling.

2. St. Patrick was not the man's real name
In the Catholic religion, a person picks a new name when they join the sainthood. The man who the world now knows as "St. Patrick" was actually called "Maewyn Succat​," or "Magonus Succetus" in Latin, until he became a saint.

3. It all started as a feast
In order to honor saints, people of the Christian faith would hold massive feasts to commemorate their life and work. They would also attend mass where the sermon was about the particular saint. Today, many people of Irish heritage continue this tradition by making food they might eat in their homeland, like Reuben sandwiches with corned beef and hash or by eating Irish soda bread, and drinking beer. 

4. You may hear the phrase, "Erin go Braugh" today
This term is Gaelic for "Ireland forever," and is said by people of Irish heritage who are being especially patriotic.

5. St. Patrick never rid Ireland of snakes
One of the many myths associated with this saint is that he banished all the snakes from the island of Ireland. In reality, the climate of the country is inhospitable to snakes and they likely never lived there at all. Instead, the phrase may be a metaphor for ridding the country of pagan or evil ways. 

6. Why do we celebrate on March 17th?
St. Patrick is said to have died on March 17th in A.D. 461. For the first several hundred years, the saint was forgotten about. Myths grew about the man and he became a legend, after which the feasts and religious celebrations arose. According to National Geographic, pubs in Ireland were actually closed on this holiday {until when? or is this still happening? revise for clarity} because of its religious beginnings. After the 1970s, St. Paddy's Day changed from a small religious feast to major party and became well known and celebrated nearly worldwide.