Yeah, the irish are totally up in arms over this 'holiday' and how its associated with binge drinking. Hahah.
SAINT Patrick's Day. This is celebrating a SAINT. It's a Catholic holiday about a saint who happened to be Irish.
It started off as a day that Catholics celebrated St. Patrick with a large feast. The date happens to fall in the middle of Lent and many Catholics give up things like feasting, eating of certain types of foods, drinking alcohol, or or partying etc. during that period. So, the they made it to where Catholics were allowed to take a break from Lent for the St. Patrick's day feast, but many people also enjoyed some of the other stuff they had been giving up such as drinking and partying because they were technically allowed to. This is the reason there is a bunch of drinking and partying on St. Patrick's day, it has nothing to do with the Irish and their drinking habits.
Well the legend is that Saint Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland and so we celebrate him every year. I usually just go to the pub and get uber smashed on Irish car bomb specials