When Is St. Patrick's Day? Depends Where You Plan To Celebrate The Feast Day Of Ireland's Patron Saint

With March well underway, the time has come for people of all ages to don green apparel, shamrocks and just about everything Irish in celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day. While St. Patrick’s Day saw its origin as a Christian feast day in the early 17th century, the holiday itself has evolved throughout the years into a larger celebration of Irish culture as a whole in addition to a celebration of Ireland’s patron saint.

This year St. Patrick’s Day, also known as the Feast of Saint Patrick, falls on a weekday, leaving some revelers wondering if they’ll be able to spend the entire day celebrating the feast of Ireland’s patron saint. For others, the answer to the question: “When is St. Patrick’s Day” isn't so simple.

For some cities and towns, celebrations such as the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade are still scheduled for the official date of St. Patrick's Day, Monday, March 17.

Depending on where you live within the United States, other cities and local municipalities have opted to shift annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations to the weekend in order to better accommodate spectators and all-day celebrations. In Boston, celebrations have shifted one day earlier to Sunday. It gets more confusing as other cities such as Chicago have also shifted their celebrations to Saturday.

Here are some of the dates and times for St. Patrick's Day celebrations and parades in a few majors U.S. cities:

New York, N.Y.: Monday, March 17, 2014; 11 a.m.

Savannah, Ga.: Monday, March 17, 2014; 10:15 a.m.

Chicago: Saturday, March 15, 2014; 12 p.m.

Boston: Sunday, March 16, 2014; 1 p.m.

Philadelphia: Sunday, March 16, 2014; 12 p.m.

San Francisco: Sunday, March 16, 2014; 12 p.m.

As you can see, local celebration dates and times vary significantly throughout the weekend leading up to the official date of St. Patrick's Day.

Ultimately, there’s not exactly a straight answer that can be given when asked the question “When is ‘everybody’ celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?”

On the other hand, this minor predicament has actually encouraged some restaurants and bars in cities such as Las Vegas and Detroit to extend St. Patrick’s Day into a weekend-long celebration.

Whenever you choose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, chances are something will be going on wherever you are in the world this weekend.