Top o' the mornin' — Get a jump on St. Patrick's Day with this primer

It's St. Patrick's Day.

Are you wearing green, so you won't get pinched?

Are you going to have Irish soda bread or shamrock-shaped cookies? Or, maybe, turn your mac-and-cheese green?

Will you put on your favorite CD of Irish songs and, perhaps, sing along to "Danny Boy"?

Do you wonder why we do all these things?

Who was St. Patrick, anyway? . . .

In his youth, St. Patrick was neither Irish nor all that saintly. He grew up in fourth-century Wales, where his father worked for the ever-weakening Roman government. Patrick — or Maewyn, as he was named then — considered himself a pagan and later said he paid little attention to the words of priests who were trying to save him.

At age 16, he was captured by a band of Irish marauders who sold him into slavery. As a sheepherder, tending the flocks of his chieftain/owner, he had time to reflect on his life and determined that his capture was God's punishment for his earlier sins.

After six years of enslavement, the young man escaped and was able to obtain passage on a ship sailing to western Europe. He ended up in Gaul, where he began to seriously study Christianity, changed his name to Patrick and decided to devote the rest of his life to God's service.

In 432, Patrick was sent by the pope (some say he volunteered to go) back to Ireland to try to convert the Celts. After some initial resistance, Patrick began to make headway and established a church at Amargh. For the next 30 to 40 years, he labored among the Irish, converting, baptizing and establishing churches. At the time of his death, a large part of the land had become Christian, and it was said that all of Ireland went into mourning for 12 days.

. . . and why does he get a day?

Patrick died on March 17, 461, and that day was almost immediately declared a feast day on which things that were generally prohibited during Lent — such as singing, dancing and eating meat — were allowed. That and the fact that it comes just days before the spring equinox may explain why it grew in popularity and later became as much a secular as a religious holiday.

Irish immigrants brought the history and tradition of St. Patrick's Day with them to America, where it was observed with ever greater fervor as a reminder of their homeland. The first public celebration of the holiday took place in Boston in 1737. The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place not in Ireland but in New York City in 1872.