Vintage Plastic Irish Pin

This fun pin is unmarked but appears to be fairly old, maybe from the 1950s.  It features a slivertone metal chain  attached to a metal and white plastic pin with a green plastic hat and shamrock dangling from it.  I just featured another shamrock pin here on 6/16, so today you will receive another Irish lesson.

So, why do people wear green on St. Patty's Day?  Well, surprisingly, blue was actually the color originally associated with St. Patrick.  At some point, it changed to green, and green ribbons and shamrocks were worn as far back as the 17th century to celebrate the holiday.  In the 1798 rebellion against British rule in Ireland, Irish soldiers purposely wore full green uniforms on March 17th to get attention.  Also, the phrase "the wearing of the green" was derived from a song of the same name and refers to wearing a shamrock on one's clothing.

Feel free to contact me if you are interested in purchasing this piece.  Questions, comments, and additional information are always appreciated.  My online shop on http://www.rubylane.com/ is coming soon.

Thank you to the following website(s) for the historical content of this blog post:

Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/25/2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day