Celebrations of St Patrick's Day over the last hundred years track the historical changes throughout Ireland. Brian Walker describes how the festival has evolved.
Since St Patrick's Day became an official holiday 100 years ago, celebrations to mark the occasion have changed greatly, in both form and degree of support. These celebrations are revealing for North-South relations and for changing concepts of Irishness.
Throughout Ireland in the early 1900s, the banks, many businesses, offices and schools were closed on St Patrick's Day. Church services, dinners, parades and concerts marked the occasion. In Dublin, there were official Dublin Castle celebrations and the lord mayor's parade.
In 1903, when March 17th was officially made a bank holiday, the Belfast News Letter described how "the anniversary helps to create a spirit of mutual tolerance and goodwill amongst Irishmen".
After 1921, significant differences developed between the two parts of Ireland as to how the day was celebrated. In the South, St Patrick's Day was made a general holiday. An annual Army parade replaced the Dublin processions.
In 1926, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, Mr William Cosgrave, made the first official radio broadcast on St Patrick's Day. He stated that the "destinies of the country, North and South, are now in the hands of Irishmen" and urged brotherly toleration and co-operation. Later broadcasts by Mr Cosgrave were in a similar inclusive vein.
With the accession to power of Mr Éamon de Valera and Fianna Fáil in 1932, however, the day took on added significance.
The occasion was used to emphasise links between the Catholic Church and Irishness and to launch vigorous attacks on the British government and partition. In his St Patrick's Day speech of of 1935, Mr de Valera reminded people that Ireland had been a Christian and Catholic nation since St Patrick: "She remains a Catholic nation."
In 1939 Mr de Valera made his St Patrick's Day speech from Rome where he declared how he had made a pledge beside the grave of Hugh O'Neill that he would never rest until "that land which the Almighty so clearly designed as one shall belong undivided to the Irish people". He urged his listeners to do likewise.
In the same year, however, the President, Mr Douglas Hyde, attended a St Patrick's Day service in the Church of Ireland cathedral of St Patrick's in Dublin.
In Northern Ireland, post 1921, St Patrick's Day was still observed but on a lower key than in the South. Newspaper reports during the 1920s and 1930s indicate that the shamrock was still worn widely on St Patrick's Day, which remained a bank holiday when banks, government and municipal offices, and schools were closed.
Some effort was made in the 1920s by the Duke of Abercorn, as governor of Northern Ireland, to run official functions on the day, but otherwise there was no official involvement in St Patrick's Day.
After the second World War, St Patrick's Day continued to be celebrated differently in the two parts of Ireland. In 1950 the military parade in Dublin was replaced by a trades and industries parade. During the late 1940s and the 1950s, the event still retained strong political and religious dimensions.
In his 1948 speech, the Taoiseach John A. Costello, attacked partition and expressed his hope that "our mother Ireland will be able to walk through all four of her beautiful green fields".
Not only heads of government, but government ministers such as Mr Seán MacEntee and Mr James Ryan now used the occasion to travel to various destinations to denounce the Border. Irish leaders continued to emphasise links between Ireland and the Catholic church. Indeed, during the 1950s and the early 1960s, it was common for either the Taoiseach or President to be in Rome on St Patrick's Day.
In Northern Ireland after the war, banks and government offices still closed. In many areas of work, however, the press during the 1950s reported "business as usual". Most state schools seemed to have dropped St Patrick's Day as a holiday by the early 1960s. The day continued to be marked in Catholic and nationalist circles.
Correspondents in the unionist press decried the political way in which the day was celebrated in the South. In the late 1950s, a government information officer urged the cabinet that it might be wise to "quietly forget" St Patrick's Day and abolish it as a bank holiday, but this was rejected.
At the same time, there were some unionists who believed more attention should be given to the day. The Belfast Telegraph on a number of occasions in the 1950s urged that the day should be a full public holiday. The Church of Ireland ran a popular St Patrick's Day pilgrimage at Downpatrick.
During the 1960s, when Mr Seán Lemass was Taoiseach, significant changes occurred in the Government's message on St Patrick's Day.
There were now calls for cross-Border co-operation. The Northern prime minister, Mr Terence O'Neill, visited the US on St Patrick's Day a number of times in the 1960s and met members of the Kennedy family.
In 1970 Dublin Tourism took over the Dublin parade which assumed a new tourist and commercial aspect. Changes also occurred in other areas in response to the northern situation.
Speeches by leading politicians now rarely contained a mention of partition, but acknowledged the acceptance of different traditions and in addition, especially in the US, denounced violence.
On a religious level, efforts were made to overcome the denominational divisions associated with the saint's day. A new organisation was set up in 1995 to run the Dublin parade which has become an extensive festival, with special emphasis on the attraction of tourists into Ireland. At the same time, most government ministers spent the day out of Ireland at events all over the world.
The new spirit of St Patrick's Day is reflected in President Mary McAleese's call on March 17th, 2000, for St Patrick's "ethos of respectful tolerance" to continue to inspire Irish people as they faced new challenges and opportunities.
In Northern Ireland in the last decade, there have also been significant changes in the way in which St Patrick's Day has been celebrated.
It remains a bank holiday, but some politicians, including the Rev Ian Paisley, have called for it to be made a public holiday.
Popular cross-community civic parades are held in Downpatrick and elsewhere. For the last three years, Lord Alderdice, speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, has hosted St Patrick's Day celebrations at Stormont.
In 1994 the Orange Order started to hang a St Patrick's flag outside their Belfast headquarters on the day. For the last two years, the Apprentice Boys of Derry have held events in their Memorial Hall in Derry as part of the celebrations in the city.
The past decade has also witnessed efforts in Belfast to mark St Patrick's Day in a major way. Féile an Phobal, based in west Belfast, has organised an annual city parade but this has been dogged by controversy over flags and emblems.
This year it is planning a concert in front of the City Hall which it hopes will be non-controversial. For the first time, Belfast Council will this year hold a St Patrick's Day concert in the evening in the Ulster Hall which will include Irish and Ulster-Scots music.
Just as commemorations on Armistice Day began by being shared widely, then became largely dominated by one section in Ireland but are once again being shared by different sections, so St Patrick's Day was once broadly celebrated, became largely monopolised by one tradition, but is now becoming shared in a more tolerant and inclusive way.
Brian Walker is Professor of Irish Studies at Queen's University, Belfast, and chairman of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.