St. Patrick's Day is a day many people like to celebrate, not only in Ireland but also throughout the world. It's interesting to note that the day we like to celebrate St. Paddy is not the day he was born, but the day he died. See below for further information on Saint Patrick

Start the St. Patricky's Day party mood early with a special invitation inviting people to come along for 'a wee bit of fun'. They might like to bring their 'shillelagh', put on their dancing shoes for a bit of an Irish jig, and to expect some wild 'shenanigans'. Leprechauns welcome of course. When sending out invitations add the prefix 'Mac' or 'O' to the guests names. ('Mac' means 'son of' and 'O' means 'grandson of'). Have the prefixes on nametags as well.

Green is the color of the day and everything from hair to food can be colored green with hair spray or food colouring.

St. Patrick's Day dress
 
  Encourage everyone to wear green. It can be anything from pointy felt hats and pointy shoes with the toes curled up, to evening dress and green feather boas. Use face paint to paint a shamrock on everybody's cheek. Wear glowing green jewellery.

  St. Patrick's Day menu suggestions
 
  Serve everything green – beer, cocktails, salads, cake with green icing, dyed chicken legs, peppermint ice cream, clover shaped sandwiches and cookies (buy cookie cutters) and green candy. Decorate your food with tiny Irish flags. Let your imagination go. Decide on a menu and then see how many of the foods can be colored green.

   St. Patrick's Day decorations
 
  Outside, or just inside the door, have a large rock (the Blarney Stone). Everyone can kiss this on entering. Tradition says this makes them talkative (the gift of blarney). The rock can be made out of papier mache if a large rock is difficult to find. Guests can kiss the Blarney Stone the way it is done in Ireland – on their backs kissing the stone above them.

Another good thing to have is a pot of gold. This can also be made out of papier-mache and filled with gold wrapped chocolate coins. Have a large cardboard rainbow ending in the pot of gold.

Have green light bulbs or hang green cellophane under lights and decorate the tables with shamrocks or four leaf clovers made out of green cardboard. White tablecloths will make them stand out. Have green napkins or green napkin rings. Shamrocks and four leaf clovers can also be hung from the ceiling and in doorways. Hang green balloons and streamers and Irish flags. Fill the room with green pot plants and throw a green spread over the couch.

  St. Patrick's Day activities
 
  Here are some St. Patricky's Day activities you may like to do:

Limerick Competition: Give each person paper and a pen and ask them to make up a limerick. You may want to give them some ideas for topics like leprechauns, maidens in distress, four leaf clover, dragons etc. Find some original limericks in the library and have someone read them out as examples.

Talent Quest: Run a talent quest with questions based on Ireland and Irish history. For example: What effect does kissing the Blarney Stone have on you? Why are there no snakes in Ireland anymore? What do you use a Shillelagh for? What is a Banshee?

Burst the Balloon: Follow these steps:

Have large packets of green and orange balloons.
Divide the group into two equal teams and have them form two queues.
Give each person a balloon. Green for one team and orange for the other.
At the other end of the room, facing the queues, place two upright unpadded chairs.
At a signal the first person in the queue blows up their balloon, ties it, (the adults can do this if it's a children's party) and runs with it to the chair.
They place it on the chair and sit on it, bouncing up and down if necessary, until it bursts.
They then run back to their team and the next person blows up their balloon and repeats the action.
The first runner goes to the back of the queue and the team that finishes first wins.
 

This content can be found at WikiPedia.

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