I love it when March 17 rolls around, and I can unabashedly enjoy the many Irish proverbs, sayings, and blessings.

They're everything from sweet to commanding to hilarious, but almost always inspiring.

Here are a few:

May the road rise up to meet you.
An old Irish recipe for longevity: Leave the table hungry, leave the bed sleepy, leave the bar thirsty.
It is often that a person’s mouth broke his nose.
Don’t be breaking your shin on a stool that’s not in your way.
A best friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.

☘️ ☘️ ☘️

THE SHAMROCK’S ANCIENT AND SACRED SYMBOLISM

St. Patrick’s Day is the anniversary of the saint’s death in the fifth century. Saint Patrick is Ireland’s patron saint and national apostle. Born in Roman Britain, he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland as a slave at the age of 16. He later escaped, but returned to Ireland and was credited with bringing Christianity to its people.

Perhaps the most well-known legend of St. Patrick is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) to the pagan Irish using the metaphor of the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock.

More than any other symbol, the shamrock is Ireland’s national emblem and the country’s unofficial flower.

St. Patrick depicted with shamrock in detail of stained glass window in St. Benin's Church, Kilbennan, County Galway, Ireland

Saint Patrick likely knew that the number three was important to pagan converts and used the shamrock as an evangelizing tool.

Indeed, the shamrock was already a sacred plant to the ancient Druids of Ireland because its leaves formed a triad, a symbol derived from the ancient and pagan belief that earth and water are representative of a goddess. This goddess encompasses every stage of a woman’s life: the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone.

The triad is a design of three interlocking and overlapping oblong shapes with a triangle in the middle. This is symbolic and stands for the goddess who embraces all three of these particular female entities.

The ancient and pagan symbol called a triad. Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

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THE SHAMROCK’S BOTANICAL BACKGROUND

Botanically, the shamrock is a young sprig and a type of trefoil plant. It’s a vigorous, rhizomatous, stem-rooting perennial, originally native to Ireland. In other words, it’s a common lawn weed.

The name shamrock comes from Irish seamróg [ˈʃamˠɾˠoːɡ], which is the diminutive of the Irish word seamair óg and simply means "young clover."

According to Tenon Tours, even among botanists, there is some disagreement on what species is the “true” shamrock, but most agree that the White Clover is probably the original shamrock of Irish symbolic heritage.

White clover grows in the summer, which is why the shamrock is sometimes referred to as the “summer plant.”

The three leaves are also said to stand for faith, hope, and love. A fourth leaf is where we get the luck from. The four-leafed clover, or “lucky clover,” is an uncommon variation of the three-leafed clover, and widely considered to be a symbol of good luck.

It is said that you may find just one four-leaf clover in a patch of 10,000 normal three-leaf clovers.

Therefore, a shamrock is defined as a three-leafed clover, and never a four-leafed one. The traditional Irish shamrock symbol, as seen just about everywhere, does not include the fourth leaf. The symbolic importance of the shamrock derives from the three-leafed version and the legend of Saint Patrick and the doctrine of the Trinity in Christianity.

☘️ ☘️ ☘️

THE SHAMROCK IS SOLIDIFIED AS A NATIONAL SYMBOL

During the 17th century, those living in poverty started wearing the shamrock on their clothing in order to look nice at church on Saint Patrick’s feast day. It was a decorative element they could easily and freely find because it grew all over outside their front doors.

In 1675, the shamrock appears on the St Patrick’s Coppers or Halfpennies, then in 1726, Irish botanist and cleric Caleb Threlkeld wrote a treatise on Ireland’s native plants in 1726 that explained the shamrock as the country’s national symbol and asserted its significance in the context of St. Patrick’s feast day.

By the 1770s it had been adopted as the emblem of the Irish Volunteers, a militia with republican sympathies. This is how it came to be associated with rebellious, nationalistic views that led Queen Victoria’s government to forbid all Irish regiments within the British Army to wear shamrock in the 19th century.

Irish Volunteers uniform pin with shamrock and harp.

From this point forward the shamrock became not just linked to St. Patrick, but to Ireland itself—much like the rose is to England, the leek to Wales, and the thistle was Scotland.

When waves of Irish immigrants came to the U.S. in the 19th century, there were no shamrocks growing in New York or Boston, or San Francisco. They celebrated their heritage with parties and parades and substituted the color green and images of the shamrock for the plant itself. As the celebration took off in the U.S., it became increasingly popular in Ireland, although to the chagrin of many who feel it debases the holiday’s true meaning.

But the tradition of the shamrock really took off when Hallmark starting using it on postcards between 1910-1915. The Greeting Card Association cites St. Patrick’s Day as the ninth-largest card-sending holiday in the U.S., and Hallmark sells around 7 million cards each year for the holiday.

Since then, Irish sports teams and brands, like Aer Lingus, started using it as a logo, further spreading it as a symbol. Indeed, Aer Lingus’ air traffic control call sign is “SHAMROCK.”

Note the use of a three-leafed clover, not four?

Aer Lingus plane with three-leafed clover logo.

In 1985, the Irish government succeeded in a lawsuit with Germany and trademarked the shamrock, yet it still remains just the unofficial symbol of Ireland.

The harp is Ireland’s official emblem, its influence dating back to ancient Irish history and especially during the middle ages when the harp and harpists were lauded in literature, music, among the aristocracy, and in politics.

Irish passport, decorated with the harp.

And while the celebration, especially in the U.S. has lost its original religious meaning—to honor Ireland’s patron saint—the shamrock’s symbolism persists.

Just don’t make the mistake of calling a shamrock a four-leafed clover.

If you’re dreaming of visiting Ireland after it’s safe to travel again, I love Nomad Matt’s round-up of everything to do, see, and experience. His travel guide is super thorough and easy to navigate. Be sure to get out of Dublin and to the countryside!

Now, I leave you with one last Irish blessing and photo of the kids and me at the Cliffs of Moher a few years back.