When is St Patrick’s Day 2020 and what events are cancelled?
ST PATRICK'S DAY is enjoyed every year not just in Ireland but across the world - but this year's celebrations are set to be muted by the threat of coronavirus.
Paddy's Day usually sees an explosion of green in many cities - as well as a few pints of Guinness being sunk.
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When is St Patrick's Day 2020?
Every year St Patrick's Day falls on March 17 and this year it is a Tuesday.
In Ireland, the day of cultural and religious celebration has been a public holiday since 1903 when the first parade was held in Waterford.
In the UK, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, would present bowls of shamrock flown over from Ireland to members of the Irish Guards in the British Army.
The tradition carries on today with the Irish Guards still wearing shamrocks flown over from Ireland.
What St Patrick's Day events have been cancelled?
It is the most globally celebrated national festival with big parties in the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina.
But because of the outbreak of coronavirus, a number of around the world.
And in the UK, the festivities are being shutdown in line with the Government's plan to halt mass gatherings, with Boris Johnson announcing the "delay phase" strategy last week.
On Monday, March 9, Belfast City Council in Northern Ireland voted to cancel the city's parade, while Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar confirmed earlier in the day that all parades and festivals in the Republic of Ireland would NOT go ahead.
In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that the city's annual celebration would be cancelled on March 17, saying he had “no choice” but to do so.
Birmingham has also postponed its annual event, which started in 1952 and attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year.
Leeds and Nottingham City Councils have also taken the decision to cancel their festivities as the coronavirus outbreak crisis deepens.
But bucking the trend across the UK, Manchester City Council has taken to the decision to go ahead as planned with it's annual parade - but all other festival events after the parade will be cancelled including those on St Patrick's Day.
The list of cancelled UK St Patrick's Day parades are as follows:
- Dublin - National St Patrick's Festival Parade - Tuesday, March 17, 2020
- Dublin - Festival Village - Saturday, March 14, to Tuesday, March 17, 2020
- Dublin - Treasure Hunt - Sunday, March 15, 2020
- Dublin - Ceili Mor - Tuesday, March 17
- Belfast - St Patrick's Day Parade and Concert, Custom House Square - Tuesday, March 17 2020
- London - London St. Patrick's Festival 2020, Trafalgar Square - Tuesday, March 17 2020
- Birmingham - Irish Quarter Parade, Digbeth - Sunday, March 15 2020
- Leeds - Leeds St Patrick's Day Parade, Millennium Square - Sunday, March 15 2020
- Nottingham - St Patrick's Day Festival, Old Market Square - Tuesday, March 17 2020
- Huddersfield - St Patrick's Day Parade, Irish Centre, Fitzwilliam Street - Sunday, March 15 2020
- Luton - St Patrick's Day festival - Various venues - Sunday, March 15, 2020
Meanwhile, the Manchester St Patricks Day Parade will kick off from 12pm on Sunday, March 15 2020 at the Irish World Heritage Centre on Queen's Road, Cheetham Hill as planned.
In a statement the government said: "Due to the unique nature and scale of the St Patrick’s Day festivities, in terms of size, the mass gathering of local and international travellers, and the continued progression of community transmission in some European countries, along with the emergence of a small number of cases of local transmission in Ireland, the Government has decided that St Patrick’s Day parades, including the Dublin parade, will not proceed.
"This is based on the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team.
"The situation in relation to other events and mass gatherings remains under review and any response will be guided by the NPHET which meets again tomorrow, along with the public health advice."
Other parades in Northern Ireland are still currently scheduled to go ahead but will be continually reviewed.
A smaller parade planned in Cork, in south coastal Ireland, has also been cancelled.
Outside Ireland, other cities that have cancelled their St Patrick's Day celebrations include Boston in the United States.
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said in a statement that the their top priority is "preventing any new cases".
In London the main event is still set to take place on Sunday, March 15, starting at 12pm and finishing around 6pm.
The parade stretches 1.5 miles from Piccadilly to Trafalgar Square and is expected to attract around 50,000 people.
At the time of writing there has been no indication from officials in London or the government that the parade will be cancelled due to coronavirus.
Manchester's parade is still set to go ahead on Sunday, March 15, as planned, as is the Birmingham event which was recently saved after a previous sponsor dropped out.
New York also still plans to hold a St Patrick's Day parade, with Mayor Bill de Blasio saying: "No, we do not have a plan to cancel the parade at this point.
“[It’s] going to be day to day, hour to hour, it’s a lot of factors.
"Clearly we’re going to watch the progression, how quickly this disease progresses.”
New York suburbs Staten Island and Queens celebrated their St Patrick's Day parades earlier this month on Sunday, March 1.
Why do we celebrate St Patrick's Day?
St Patrick's Day is thought to represent the date that St Patrick died - the foremost patron saint of Ireland.
It was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th century and while the day is a holy and religious day in the Catholic Church and others, it has more recently become a day to celebrate Ireland as a nation and all things Irish too.
Until the 20th century, St Patrick's Day celebrations were actually a bigger deal among Irish diaspora - Irish descendants living outside Ireland, particularly in North America.
It is not a legal holiday in the US, but is widely celebrated there and in Canada - where the longest-running parade has been held in Montreal since 1884.
Who is the patron saint of Ireland?
The patron saint of Ireland is St Patrick, a fifth-century Romeo-British Christian missionary and Bishop in Ireland.
St Patrick is also known as the Apostle of Ireland and is the main patron saint of the country, along with two other saints Brigit of Kildare and Columba.
Historians can't be sure of the exact dates of Saint Patrick's life, but they think he lived in the second half of the fifth century and was the first bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland.
St Paddy is also thought to be a founder of Christianity in Ireland who helped convert the country from practising a form of Celtic polytheism.
In the Confessio of Patrick, a Latin work that's thought to be written by the Saint, St Patrick writes that when he was just 16 he was captured by Irish pirates and taken from his home in Great Britain to become a slave in Ireland.
Here he looked after animals for six years before escaping and running back to his family.
He said his time as a slave meant he became closer to God through prayer and eventually paved the way for his conversion to Christianity.
Years later, after he had trained as a cleric, St Patrick returned to Ireland and served as a bishop, but not much is known about where he worked.
By the seventh century, St Patrick had already become known as the patron saint of Ireland.
The date of his death is uncertain, with some historians thinking St Patrick died in c.460 and others thinking a later date of c.493.
According to one legend, the Irish symbol of the shamrock could actually be thanks to Saint Patrick; with some historians believing that the saint used the symbol to teach the Irish people about the holy trinity.