Is there any truth to this?

http://www.breakingnews.ie/discover/ame ... 24984.html

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I certainly can't confirm any of the claims made in the article but I certainly can't deny that, generally speaking of course, Americans do have a knack for making a spectacle out of just about any occasion. What other culture in the world would take the life and works of a very pious and reverent individual such as St. Patrick and turn it into a weekend filled with ostentatiousness and public drunkenness ? Not that that's such a bad thing

I would say that a lot of modern St. Patrick's Day practices were thought up by Irish immigrants to the U.S., or by their descendants, yes. That's what I found when I researched St. Patrick's Day practices for a blog post last year. In fact, Americans used to be warned in guide books not to expect the kind of St. Patrick's Day shenanigans in Ireland that they might be accustomed to at home, other than, perhaps, in Dublin.

I remember telling an Irish friend once how children in the U.S. used to pinch kids who weren't wearing green on St. Patrick's Day (I don't know if they still do in this lawsuit-happy world)...she was shocked!

Redwolf