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Five fun facts for St. Patrick’s Day
Though firmly rooted in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day was invented in America. Irish-Americans in Boston were the first to celebrate the holiday, back in 1737. Here are five things about St. Patrick’s Day that you may not have known.
A bagpiper plays as he walks across the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, as part of the exchange's St. Patrick's Day observance. (AP)
1. St. Patrick wasn’t Irish
The man whom the holiday honors was born in Britain to Roman parents in the third century. As a teenager, he was kidnapped and spirited away to Ireland, where he was enslaved and forced to work as a shepherd for seven years.
The future patron saint of Ireland eventually escaped and returned Britain, but according to legend, a heavenly voice came to him in a dream and commanded him to return to Ireland to convert the country to Christianity.
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