Happy St Patrick’s!

Whether you are Irish, have Irish ancestry, need an excuse to drink Guinness, or paint your river green, MyHeritage wishes you a happy Paddy’s day!

We wrote previously about the little known facts about this day.

It turns out there are some more… We found out for example that, while it is customary to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day in the United States, the color green is actually considered unlucky in Ireland. The story goes that green is the color of faeries, which are believed to steal children who wear too much green.

Other random things to know are that there are nine places named after Dublin, the capital of Ireland, of which eight are in the US, and one in the UK; that the shamrock is not only supposed to bring

luck, but is also reputed to have mystic, even prophetic powers – for instance, the leaves are said to stand upright to warn of an approaching storm.

And finally, There are 54 counties in North-America where the Irish are the largest observed ancestry group. Forty-four of these counties are in the North-East, with 14 in New York, 11 in Massachusetts and five in New Jersey.

Do these facts make you wonder whether you may have a bit of Irish in you? Use our Community pages and Family Tree Builder to find Smart Matches and discover more about your ancestry.

Slainte from MyHeritage!