The Irish Pot of Gold – St. Patrick’s Day

St Patricks Day, Paddy’s Day, Feast of Saint Patrick or even Lá Fheile Pádraig as it can sometimes be known is a cultural and religious celebration more known for the Guinness and the green accessories these days than anything else. It wasn’t always that way, Saint Patrick’s Day is celebration in memory of the death of Saint Patrick, a Christian missionary and bishop who is the foremost patron saint of Ireland. He is believed to have converted large numbers of the pagan Irish to Christianity.

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in all corners of the globe in one way or another, with Chicago turning the Chicago River completely green, Dublin illuminating the city in green lights to the Caribbean island of Montserrat’s annual week of St. Paddy’s Day celebrations (I know, google it).

With all that happens on St. Patrick ’s Day you could probably wager in the Paddy Power Casino that an absolute fortune is being spent, and if you had betting odds on that, I would take it as you would be 100% right.

U.S.A

Estimated spend on St. Patrick’s Day 2017: $4,500,000,000+

56.5 percent of the 325 million American public planned to buy food beverages BOOZE to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in 2016 and around 25% planned on purchasing some clothing to help get involved in celebrations. When this is all totalled along with trips and decorations etc. It means the USA will drop about 4.5 billion dollars on Paddy’s Day!

United Kingdom

Estimated spend on St. Patrick’s Day 2017: £750,000,000+

Revellers in the UK will spend in excess of 750 million (seven hundred and fifty million pounds) during the festivities of St. Patrick’s Day. A large proportion of that will be spent on drink with an estimated 5 million pints of Guinness & about the same amount of other assorted drinks being necked. The makers of Guinness even plan on handing out 325,000 promotional hats as we’re suckers for anything free!

The following day all the empty alcohol glasses are cleared up and all of the promotional hats and beards are put away until next year. Once the bean counters get to work on totting up all that has been spent in 2017 on St. Patrick’s Day it’s expected they will come up with a figure that exceeds $7,000,000,000 worldwide. That is 7 billion dollars worldwide for a festival that is basically a celebration of drinking alcohol.