HISTORY OF ST. PATRICK'S DAY

St Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17th in commemoration of that historical figure's act of driving the Norwegians out of Ireland

It seems that centuries ago, many Norwegians came to Ireland to escape the bitterness of the Norwegian winters. Ireland was having a famine at the time and food was very scarce. The Norwegians were eating almost all the fish caught in the sea, leaving the Irish with nothing but potatoes.

St Patrick, taking things into his own hands, decided the Norwegians had to go. Secretly he organized the IRATRION (Irish Republic Army to Rid Ireland of Norwegians). Irish members of IRATRION sabotaged all the power plants in hopes the fish the Norwegians kept in refrigerators would spoil, forcing the Norwegians to a colder climate where their fish would keep. The fish spoiled, all right, but the Norwegians, as everyone knows, thrive on spoiled fish. Faced with failure, the Irish sneaked into the Norwegians fish storage caves in the dead of night and sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian intruders but, miraculously, the Norwegians thrived on this newconcoction and dubbed the smelly lye-soaked fish "Lutefisk". Matters became even worse for the Irishmen when the Norwegians started taking over the Irish potato crop and making lefse.

Poor St Patrick was at his wits end, and finally on March 17th, he blew his top and told the Norwegians to go to Hell and it worked. All the Norwegians left Ireland and moved to Minnesota.