Why do people wear green on St. Patrick's Day?

Question

I'm just curious about the tradition

Answer 1

cause its one of the colors of the irish flag and its the color of the ever-popular image of st. patrick's day -- the shamrock!

Answer 2

Here are some suggested explanations:
"The colors of the Republic of Ireland are a tricolor of green, white, and orange. The orange supposedly represents the protestant population, the green the Catholic, and the white the peace between them. (Let's just leave Northern Ireland out of this.) Protestants don't celebrate saint's days. So the wearing of green is a symbol of Saint Patrick's day and then Ireland, the Emerald Isle, in general. The day as a holiday with parades, green beer etc. is more of an American tradition than Irish, and of course on St. Paddy's day everyone is Irish."
One of the reasons that one wears green on St. Patrick's Day is because the Catholic side of Ireland is identified with green, and St. Patrick is a Catholic Saint credited with converting the island to Christianity. Where as the protestants are identified with orange, and are often called "Orangemen", as in King William the Orange. The clashes in Ireland between the Catholics and Protestants are often clashes of the green and the orange. The irony is that the Irish flag, is supposed to represent the unity of the two with the white between the two colours represnting unity. The traditional pinching of a person who wears orange on St. Patrick's Day is a mild form of the violence that has so often occured in the past as both factions have had St. Patrick's Day marches/parades.
In Ireland there is actually very little preference to green at the parades, maybe a few novelty hats but not much more. Wearing green is an American thing.

Answer 3

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland as he was the one who converted us to Christianity. He is from Ireland
so...
The national colour of Ireland is green ((just as France's is blue Spain's is red!)) so everyone wears green because he's from Ireland


You sound American so just to let you know everyone in Ireland doesnt wear green on the day, yes people will wear a green jumper or a green irish hat but that's all so if we dont then dont feel you have to in America r anywhere else

Answer 4

In the United States, it's customary to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. But in Ireland the color was long considered to be unlucky, says Bridget Haggerty, author of The Traditional Irish Wedding and the Irish Culture and Customs Web site.
As Haggerty explains, Irish folklore holds that green is the favorite color of the Good People (the proper name for faeries). They are likely to steal people, especially children, who wear too much of the color.

Answer 5

St Pat of course is Irish. Ireland has long been known as the emerald isle due to its very green fields. Leprechauns of course dress in green (we all know that ). These and green on the flag has meant that green has become one of the colours used by people celebrating 16 March

Answer 6

when i was little, my teacher said st Patrick is a real st. then she said his favorite color is green and if u don't wear it, u get pinched by the ghost of st Patrick

Answer 7

Nobody knows why. People are sheep. I think it's stupid and never wear green, because I am not one of the crowd. Nothing wrong with people who are, except they will only be as happy as the crowd will let them be. That's not how I choose to live. I will be happy on my own terms, thanks.

Answer 8

basically my eire football jersey :) My college always has a eco-friendly Day, the position we gown in eco-friendly to strengthen money for charity :) That replaced into at present, and we were given €4,500 :D i'd positioned on eco-friendly knickers =]

Answer 9

because green represesnts the clover.

but actually people wear blue in ireland on this day.

Answer 10

the country of ireland is all green