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A Toast to St. Patrick’s Day Trends & Insights
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Despite the fact that St. Patrick wasn’t even Irish, St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration where everyone gets to be Irish for the day! From wearing green to drinking Irish stouts and watching celebratory parades, people are getting into the spirit across the globe.
This holiday is steeped in history and the traditional ideas of what it means to celebrate Irish heritage. Cooking up Irish foods, drinking Irish beer, looking for your pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, and toasting to friendship and a life well lived are just a few staples of St. Patrick’s Day!
Wishing you a rainbow
Traditional Irish toast
For sunlight after showers—
Miles and miles of Irish smiles
For golden happy hours—
Shamrocks at your doorway
For luck and laughter too,
And a host of friends that never ends
Each day your whole life through!
In this post, we shall toast our way through the holiday and the various ways people are celebrating and getting inspired for the St. Patrick’s Day festivities!
Table of contents:
- St. Patrick’s Day food and drink trends
- St. Patrick’s Day celebration insights
- St. Patrick’s day crafts and activities
Here’s to the land of the shamrock so green,
Traditional Irish toast
Here’s to each lad and his darlin’ colleen,
Here’s to the ones we love dearest and most.
May God bless old Ireland, that’s this Irishman’s toast!
St. Patrick’s Day food & drink trends
-Irish Proverb
Food and drink trend 1: Traditional recipes
People are seeking out Irish recipe content for the big day.
In fact, 30% of Americans plan to cook something special on St. Patrick’s Day. For the savory, main courses, people are primarily seeking out a handful of traditional Irish dishes.
St. Patrick’s Day is less varied than other holidays in that respect, with fewer people wanting a creative twist and most just looking for a standard take on their favorites.
Corned beef and cabbage (especially cooked in a slow cooker!) is by far the most popular recipe search. It’s actually not a traditional dish from Ireland but rather a dish that was created by the Irish immigrants that came to America in the 19th century.
Fun fact: 26 billion pounds of beef and 2.3 billion pounds of cabbage are produced in the U.S. each year.
Other traditional recipes that people seek out1:
- Shepherd’s Pie
- Beef Stew
- Bangers and Mash
- Irish Soda Bread
- Carrots & Potatoes
People are looking for meal inspiration for the day as well. Popular content and search queries2:
- Irish Breakfast (especially pancakes or green eggs and ham)
- Irish Lunch
- Vegan Options
Food and drink trend 2: Magically delicious treats
Sweet treats are popular during the holiday, especially for parties and classrooms.
Popular St. Patrick’s Day treat content and keywords3:
- Cupcakes
- Cookies
- Ice Cream
- Lucky Charm cereal recipes
Food and drink trend 3: Drink recipes. Sláinte!
Given that drinking is a popular way to celebrate the holiday, it’s probably no surprise that drinks are a highly popular keyword and search query! In fact, St. Patrick’s Day is the 3rd most popular holiday for drinking, and the average person consumes 4.2 drinks on this day.
Did you know? “Sláinte” means “cheers” in Irish Gaelic.
Irish you were beer: Beer is a staple of the holiday. 63% of Americans who plan to drink on St. Patrick’s Day will choose beer, and 13 million pints of Guinness will be consumed on St. Patrick’s Day, across the globe!
Popular Irish beer content and search queries2:
- Green beer
- Guinness
- Irish stouts
- Irish beer
Getting into the spirits: After beer, Irish liquors are a popular second beverage to consume on St. Patrick’s Day. 28% of people who plan to drink will be drinking liquor.
Popular liquor keywords and search queries2:
- Irish Cocktails
- Irish Coffee
- Irish Car Bomb
- Irish Maid Cocktail
- Irish Mist Cocktail
- Bailey’s
- Jameson
Shake it up: McDonald’s released the Shamrock Shake 50 years ago in 1970! Since then, the Shamrock Shake has been a popular drink to recreate at home and, in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, many are looking for a boozy version. Boozy shakes in general are a popular search query for the holiday for those looking to get their liquor and have their sweet treat too!
Here’s to a long life and a merry one.
Traditional Irish toast
A quick death and an easy one.
A pretty girl and an honest one.
A cold pint and another one!
Food and drink trend 4: St. Patrick’s Day flavors
When it comes to sweet treats and cocktails, a few flavors stand out. In general, the flavor profile of the holiday centers around green things like “mint” and “lime” but other popular flavors include “chocolate”, “cream”, and “sour”3.
St. Patrick’s Day celebration insights
There are good ships,
Traditional Irish toast
and there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea.
But the best ships are friendships,
And may they always be.
People are excited to celebrate with their friends and family on this rowdy holiday either the weekend before or after the holiday depending on what day of the week it falls on.
For those that plan on partaking in the shenanigans, here’s a breakdown of how they’ll celebrate5:
Celebrations trend 1: Parades
Parades are a popular St. Patrick’s Day search query!
The world’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade occurred on March 17, 1762, in New York City. Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and celebrations are particularly famous with people getting up early to watch the river get dyed green with 40lbs of green dye.
And lots of other cities across the country have their own celebratory parades that people are eager to learn more about! If you write about local attractions, consider covering your area’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations to reach these interested readers.
Celebrations trend 2: Bars
St. Patrick’s Day is one of the few holidays where people are more likely to go to a bar than to a party to celebrate with friends.
27% of celebrators plan to go to a bar or restaurant, and the percentage is even higher for younger audiences with 29% of people age 18-24 and 36% of people age 25-34 planning on celebrating at a bar.
“Best bars for St. Patrick’s Day in [insert city]” and “St. Patrick’s Day bar crawl” are popular search queries for cities on St. Patrick’s Day2.
Celebrations trend 3: Parties
Although less popular than going to a bar, people are still throwing parties. Younger people especially are more likely to attend or host a St. Patrick’s Day party for their friends.
May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.
Traditional Irish toast
For those that are hosting or attending a party, they are interested in finding inspiration for3:
- St. Patrick’s Day appetizers
- Drinking games
- St. Patrick’s Day decorations, especially wreaths
Celebrations trend 4: Return to the motherland
The ideal celebration for some is to celebrate the holiday at the Emerald Isle itself. While the majority remain stateside, 77% of Americans express a desire to visit Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day, and 376,000 people from all over the world fly into the Dublin airport to celebrate!
St. Patrick’s day crafts & fun activities
May your pockets be heavy—
Traditional Irish toast
Your heart be light,
And may good luck pursue you
Each morning and night.
There are a few key icons and traits people associate with St. Patrick’s Day and incorporate into parties, food, decorations, and more!
Crafts and activities trend 1: Luck of the Irish
If you’ve read our other AdThrive-exclusive insights reports, you’ll notice that lots of holidays have an element of cultivating luck and St. Patrick’s Day is not exempt!
?Shamrocks and four-leaf clovers: Given the fact that your chances of finding a four-leaf clover are 1 in 10,000, finding one would seem mighty lucky and people believe that it will bring you good fortune!
The most popular ways to incorporate shamrocks are cards, t-shirts, and baked goods (especially cookies and cupcakes)1.
May the luck of the Irish
Traditional Irish toast
Lead to happiest heights
And the highway you travel
Be lined with green lights.
?Leprechauns: What Santa is to Christmas and the Easter Bunny is to Easter, leprechauns are to St. Patrick’s Day.
People are seeking out4:
- Leprechaun traps
- Lucky leprechauns
- Leprechaun costumes
?Rainbows & pots of gold: It’s said there’s a pot of leprechaun gold at the end of the rainbow. Some of the most popular St. Patrick’s Day recipes, crafts, and cards feature rainbows and pots of gold.
Fun fact: One pot of leprechaun gold (1,000 one-ounce coins) is estimated at 1.3 million dollars!
May you have all the happiness
Traditional Irish toast
and luck that life can hold—
And at the end of all your rainbows
may you find a pot of gold.
Crafts and activities trend 2: Green apparel
81% of people intend to wear green to commemorate the holiday and many are looking for DIY ideas for apparel.
People are seeking out St. Patrick’s Day4:
- T-Shirts
- Costumes
- Hats
Crafts and activities trend 3: Specific craft keywords
Folks enjoy making Irish crafts to celebrate the big day. Popular St. Patrick’s Day craft content and search queries3:
- Activities
- Printables
- Arts & Crafts
- Coloring Pages
- Clipart
Crafts and activities trend 4: Malarkey, blarney, and the gift of gab
Sharing cards, funny jokes, and humorous captions are popular activities for St. Patrick’s Day, with trending keywords including6:
- Jokes
- Memes
- Funny Quotes
- Sayings
From good food and beer to fun parties and parades, St. Patrick’s Day is a festive day for people to get together and share in traditional joy and tomfoolery.
We hope you’ve found this post helpful as you plan out your content for the upcoming holiday. We shall leave you with this final Irish toast:
Wherever you go and whatever you do,
Traditional Irish toast
may the luck of the Irish be there with you.
Sláinte, AdThrivers!
Data sources:
- AdThrive & Google Trends data
- Google Trends & SEMRush keyword data
- AdThrive & SEMRush keyword data
- Google Trends
- NRF, St. Patrick’s Day Data Center
- AdThrive, Google Trends data, and SEMRush keyword data