Liberation to Celebration: How Green Became the Color of St. Patrick's Day

This weekend, wear green with pride. It's the color of freedom.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! While this weekend will be filled with feasts, the overconsumption of green beer, and the mother of all hangovers, St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t always rambunctious. Originally, it was a respectful commemoration of St. Patrick, the patron saint who brought Christianity to Ireland. In the latter half of the second millennium, increasingly aggressive British colonization of the Emerald Isle forced the Irish into exile. Naturally, their customs and traditions traveled with them. The height of Ireland’s dispersion and despair peaked during the Great Hunger (a.k.a. the Irish Potato Famine) when the British exported large quantities of grain and barley, forcing the Irish to live on blight-ridden potatoes. As a result of Britain’s policy, over a million Irish starved and another million were forced into exile, reducing Ireland’s population by almost 25%.

A memorial to the victims of the Great Hunger in Boston, MA.

In their new homes of Boston, Liverpool, and Sydney, Irish refugees celebrated St. Patrick’s Day. Their neighbors quickly took interest, and the holiday morphed into the secular celebration of Irish culture we recognize today. While St. Patrick’s Day is now akin to an international drinking festival, its trademark custom of wearing green carries a profound message worth remembering. As we push back on current colonial projects that are eerily similar to the one that drove millions of Irish men and women from their homeland, commemorating nations that have shed tyranny and gained independence serves as a promising reminder that no matter how far off justice may appear, it is always within reach.

Not Just a Color

Before the 1800s, Ireland’s national color was blue, taken from the flags the British imperialists flew over the occupied nation.

British flags for colonial Ireland. The three crowns (left) was the Banner of the Lordship of Ireland from 1177 to 1542. The harp (right) was the flag from 1542 until Ireland achieved independence in 1922.

Various rebel groups had used green on their banners throughout Irish history, but it wasn’t until the rebellion of 1798 that it became the official color of Irish nationalism. In May of that year, the United Irishmen revolted against British rule and the harsh serfdom British landlords had imposed on the Irish peasantry. The British Army wore red and the Royal Crown had claimed blue, so the Irish rebels fought under a green flag, cementing it as the color of the Irish independence movement.

The 1798 rebellion failed, but the movement for Irish self-determination lived. Over the next century, Irish revolutionaries waged war against their British occupiers. Their efforts eventually climaxed in 1916. On St. Patrick’s Day of that year, over forty parades were held across Ireland. The marchers carried rifles and placards calling for a free and independent Irish state. Riding the nationalist fervor, the paramilitary Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) launched the Easter Rising rebellion the following month. Standing on the steps of Dublin’s General Post Office, IRB leader Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, announcing a new state free from British dominion. To commemorate their new nation, the revolutionaries adopted the iconic tri-color, which remains Ireland’s national Irish flag to this day. As the United Irishmen flew their revolutionary green banner to symbolize Irish Catholic equality, the IRB added orange and white to signify the society they sought to create — green for the Catholics, orange for the Protestants, and white for the peaceful coexistence they aspired for.

The Irish tri-color representing interreligious harmony flies over Dublin Castle. For centuries, the Castle was the headquarters of British Imperialism.

While the Easter Rising failed and its leaders were executed, the rebellion fanned the flames of independence that eventually carried the nation to decolonization. For the next six years, Ireland endured a revolutionary period that ended with the 1922 founding of the Irish Free State. In 1937, a constitutional referendum established the Republic of Ireland we recognize today. Though the Irish have achieved their rightful recognition as a sovereign people, the work is not done. Six counties in the north of the island remain under British rule, and the democratic, socialist society the Easter Rising aspired for has yet to materialize. With their struggle incomplete, the Irish take immense pride in their liberation iconography. Irish Catholics proudly fly the tri-color, born from the revolutionary green banners of their rebellious ancestors, even when it is banned in the British-held counties.

“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.” - James Connolly, leader of the Easter Rising.

It may seem trivial to put such importance on a color. After all, green isn’t exclusive to Ireland. They share it with anti-littering campaigns and the New York Jets. But when a nation spends eight hundred years under an imperial boot, seemingly minor acts such as proudly wearing green or flying an outlawed flag become a mighty declaration. When mixed with an unwavering commitment to freedom, cloth and dye send a message to the oppressors: “We do not consent to your tyranny. Expect no complacency from us.”

As the history of Ireland teaches us, this sentiment is the first step on the road to liberation.

Murals in Falls Road, Belfast, commemorating the Irish and Palestinian liberation struggle. Ireland’s historic fight for independence has made it a natural ally of Palestine.

While most of us have never walked through a military checkpoint on our way to work or passed under a machine gun to take our kids to school, the soft power of wearing green remains. Whether realized or not, putting on your favorite shamrock shirt for your annual St. Patrick’s pub crawl acknowledges that, despite the attempts of British imperialists, the people of Ireland are worthy of celebration, dignity, and self-determination. This may sound obvious to contemporary ears, but that is only because we live at the end of Ireland’s thousand-year rejection of the indignity of second-class humanity.

I hope you enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day weekend. May the beer chill your tongue and the friendship warm your heart. But when the festivities end, let’s remember the reason we celebrated and channel that undying spirit into the ongoing struggles for peace and liberation.

Who knows? Maybe one day my grandchildren will celebrate St. Palestine’s Day.

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In Solidarity — Joe