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Show St. Patrick's Day. March 17th is celebrated by Irishmen Irish-men of all creeds- and denominations as the birthday of their patron saint, Patrick. There is a story that once there was a dispute between two factions, fac-tions, one claiming that the patron saint was born on the eighth, the other that he came to this world on the ninth of March. As the quarrel could not otherwise be settled, the 17th was decided de-cided on by the simple compromise of adding eight and nine together. But there appears to be no reason for doubting that St. Patrick was born either ei-ther at Kirkpatrick (or Dumbarton) in Scotland, or perlwps in France, in the latter part of the fourth century, on the day usually kept as his birthday. St. Patrick's day is purely a national j , celebration irrespective of any relig-I relig-I ious belief. |