As a person of greatly Irish descent, St. Patrick’s Day means a lot more to me than dressing up in green and pinching people while riotously drunk.

Seriously. Think about it for a minute and analyze what St. Paddy’s Day signifies to you? How do you celebrate it? What is on your mind while you experience the holiday? Why does it matter to you?

Lá Fhéile Pádraig, Gaelic for “the Day of the Festival of Patrick”, is a celebration of the arrival of Christianity on Ireland, as well as a celebration of the Irish culture – which, for those who don’t know, is a lot more than whiskey, potatoes, shamrocks, and leprechauns.

For instance, the original color associated with the holiday was blue, and it was celebrated in an early form in ninth century. It became a national public holiday (and officially ‘green’) in 1903, and the official aim of the celebration, as stated by the Irish government, is in part “To project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal” – not a day of drinking and debauchery.

So when I see people dressing up in ridiculously ways and acting wild and obnoxious, I personally feel that not only is the point of the holiday being utterly missed, but that I and my people are being utterly misunderstood and even degraded. Not all those of Irish descent feel this way, but I certainly do. There’s a lot more to being Irish than dressing in green, trying to catch little men hiding gold at the roots of rainbows, and drinking prodigiously. Celebrating being Irish is celebrating a strong people who fight for their freedom, and even though they don’t always succeed as they desired, they don’t let themselves be downtrodden. The Irish people survived a huge potato famine – even though the potatoes weren’t natural staples of their diet, when the tuber came to their land they seized an opportunity to further their growth, and when it was taken away, they kept going.

When many Irish people came to America (many to escape the famine), they survived as well, though people often refused to hire them, and would walk on the other side of the road to avoid them. They lived in slums, and were treated almost (not quite, but almost) as badly as black people were treated after slavery and before the Civil Rights movement.

If you’re Irish, or someone in your family is Irish, or if you just want to celebrate and honor the indomitability of the Irish people, then celebrate this holiday the right way. Enjoy your Irish beer (though whiskey is better), enjoy your green and shamrocks and time with friends and family – but keep yourselves safe, don’t drive intoxicated, and remember that your celebration is for the Irish people and their culture. Conduct yourself on this holiday in a way that displays the respect the Irish people are due, and the admiration you (hopefully) have for their strength and ability to not only survive, but to maintain their culture amid war, emigration, and in some cases, control by foreign government.

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