St. Patricks Day... a good holiday? Really?

[Keisaku Hakurei]

St. Patrick's Day is a very ugly holiday.

In Ireland, it is both a Catholic and Protestant holiday. Catholics hate Protestants, and Protestants hate Catholics. One group wears green, the other orange. If a Catholic spots a Protestant, or the other way around, chaos ensues. People even die just because they wore the "wrong" color on that day.

On that ground, I really can't endorse celebrating it in any form.  

[Kairanha]

This day: Most commonely celebrated with alchohol. I seriously doubt anyone outside Ireland really cares about the holiday itself and more or less use it as an excuse to get wasted.  

[Keisaku Hakurei]

Details like that are important to me. While I do not observe holidays, I could not celebrate a holiday that brings such hatred out of people.  

[Liada Trovaras]

I respect your reasons for not wanting to celebrate a holiday that would have something like that behind it. For me its the opposite.

I have 1/3 of Irish blood in me. After taking a multi-cultural class back in collage and getting to learn more about my family from my grandmothers, it gave me more resolve to who I am today and so when I celebrate St. Patty's I celebrate my family's heritage and where I came from. While accepting that yes there are dark and ugly images that will be tied to it. As is most other major holidays are. I mean Valentines was originally a date that marked a great massacre of criminal gangs in Chicago. Now its a hallmark day of fake romance.  

[katiethejoyfulcatastrophe]

Its a good holiday for irish people, like myself, but others are kind of just in it for the excuse to drink and have no idea what it is actually about.  

[Ergates]

Moon Rabbit, I'm afraid your information is totally incorrect. Protestants do not hate Catholics, or vice-versa, but certain fundamentalist or political factions use religion to justify their actions, and that is entirely different.

St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is just fun, partying, fireworks, pretend leprechauns, nonsense like that. No-one takes it seriously, least of all us, the Irish, and there is certainly no fighting, and far less drunkenness than the rest of the world imagines.

You are probably mixing up that holiday with the political difficulties in Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, where some people may use it to cause trouble, just as anti-Americans might use the 4th of July to cause problems.
Outside of Northern Ireland, which is only a small part of the country, Protestants and Catholics live in complete harmony.