and St. Patrick’s Day?

Before green, blue was actually associated with Ireland and St. Patrick. In the 16th century, Henry the VIII of England founded the Kingdom of Ireland and his flag at that time was blue (this is one of the reasons the blue flag with a harp is connected to the Irish President). The color blue was also the official color of the Order of St. Patrick and early depictions of the saint show him wearing blue.

The color green started popping up in the 17th century when Irish Catholics rebelled against the English crown. Using a green flag with a harp (representing the Confederation of Kilkenny), Commander Owen Roe O’Neill helped lead the rebellion as their group sought to rule Ireland and remove all the Protestants whohave taken control of all the land in the northern part of the country. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland would ultimately defeat the rebels.

In 1790, the color green cropped up once again to promote nonsectarian, republican ideas to Ireland. The Society of United Irishmen - the main group that pushed this idea - wore green “liberty caps.”

The importance of wearing the color green eventually spread. “You start to see different traditions building up around colors — the Protestant tradition is orange, the nationalist tradition associated with the Catholics is green,” Vice President of the American Conference for Irish Studies Timothy McMahon explained in an interview with Time.com.

In the U.S., people started wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day back in the 19th