Boise ranked one of the best US cities for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Here’s how high
St. Patrick’s Day is the third-heaviest drinking day of the year in America, and living in Boise may not be for the faint of heart regarding the Irish holiday.
A new study from the personal finance website WalletHub found that Boise was the 10th-best city in America for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, which fall on March 17 every year.
Perhaps there’s a correlation between the Gem State and Ireland’s love for potatoes, but that’s not the primary reason, according to the study.
WalletHub compared the 200 largest cities in the United States for drinking beer and wearing green, ranking each city across four key dimensions: St. Patrick’s Day traditions, costs, safety and accessibility, and weather.
The four dimensions were composed of 15 metrics, including Irish pubs and restaurants per capita, average beer price, walkability and forecasted temperature.
Among the four key dimensions, Boise ranked 21st for traditions, 65th for costs, 38th for safety and accessibility, and 49th for weather.
Cities were scored on a 100-point scale; the higher the score, the better it is for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Boise tallied a score of 59.52, just behind Buffalo, New York (59.77), and ahead of Henderson, Nevada (58.76).
Source: WalletHub
Data for the study was gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau, Council for Community and Economic Research, and Accuweather, among other sources.
Boise has its fair share of Irish bars and pubs close to the downtown area, including Mulligans’ Pub, Tom Grainey’s and O’Michael’s Pub and Grill. Several traditional bagpipers and drummers groups will be making the rounds around Boise on St. Patrick’s Day too, including the Boise Firefighters Pipes and Drums, The Boise Highlanders and the City of Trees Pipes and Drums.
Where else makes St. Patrick’s Day top 10?
According to WalletHub, here are the top 10 cities for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, along with their cumulative score.
Boston, Massachusetts (66.9)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (66.57)
Chicago, Illinois (63.58)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (61.53)
New York, New York (61.05)
Reno, Nevada (60.51)
Santa Rosa, California (60.41)
Naperville, Illinois (60.15)
Buffalo, New York (59.77)
Boise, Idaho (59.52)
Fun St. Patrick’s Day facts
As much as we love to wear Irish green and think of little leprechauns with pots of gold, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations as we know them today — drinking green beer and holding parades — originated in America.
Here are some other fun facts to get you in the mood for the holiday:
St. Patty’s Day or St. Paddy’s Day?
The term “St. Patty’s Day” has become a commonly used colloquialism in the U.S. for St. Patrick’s Day. The shortening of the name most likely came from the nickname “Patty,” according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, but it’s a name that is technically incorrect in Irish culture.
In Ireland, the name Patty is short for Patricia, while the name Patrick is the anglicized form of the name Pádraig. St. Pádraig was born in Britain before being taken to Ireland as a prisoner and ultimately introduced Christianity to Ireland, earning him the honor of Ireland’s most prominent patron saint.
That means technically the name of the holiday is St. Pádraig’s Day, and in turn, St. Paddy’s day.
Drinking on St. Patrick’s Day originated in the U.S.
Americans are projected to spend $6.85 billion this St. Patrick’s Day, according to the National Retail Federation. The federation estimates that 61% of Americans plan to celebrate the holiday, meaning each person will spend approximately $43.84 on average.
But drinking was never a part of the original holiday in Ireland. In fact, it was Irish emigrants to the United States that first incorporated revelry into proceedings, celebrating their Irish culture together despite being so far from home.
The first St. Patrick’s Day Parade — another American creation — took place in Boston in 1737 and other U.S. cities soon followed suit. In fact, for much of the holiday’s existence in Ireland local pubs closed for people to observe the holiday due to its religious nature, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that pubs remained open in Ireland as the country followed suit in its celebrations along with the rest of the world.
Wearing green on St. Patrick’s originated in America
St. Patrick’s Day remained a religious holiday in Ireland until the mid-to-late 1900s, but wearing green became a thing in America around the same time as parades began, in the early 1700s.
Green was worn for multiple reasons. One of the earliest reasons was because revelers thought that wearing green would make them invisible to leprechauns, who according to legend would pinch people who were not wearing green (and therefore not invisible).
Green is also worn on St. Patrick’s Day because of the green stripe on the Irish flag. The Irish flag features three stripes, with green representing the Roman Catholics, orange representing Protestants, and the white stripe down the middle representing the peace between the two groups.
With St. Patrick’s Day being a Christian holiday, the green was adopted from the flag.
