March 17th is the day that people worldwide celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Originally an Irish holiday honoring St. Patrick on the anniversary of his death, people from various locations now celebrate the day. You’ll see parades, parties, and lots of green surrounding St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
There are two schools of thought regarding St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. One is that everything has to be green, including the food. The other is that the decorations are green, but the food is traditional Irish fare. No matter which school of thought you ascribe to, planning a St. Patrick’s Day potluck can be fun to celebrate the holiday.
I love all things Irish. The folk music, the lore, the food, and even the dancing. I go to Irish festivals any chance I get, so it’s a natural extension of that love of Irish traditions and heritage to host my own St Patrick’s Day celebration.
I personally enjoy traditional Irish fare, so I will look at some decorating ideas, advertising ideas, and food ideas. For those of you who disagree with me, I’ll add some green for green’s sake kind of ideas.
Decorating for St. Patrick’s Day
The theme of the day is green. There are a plethora of green decorations available for St. Patrick’s Day parties. Green banners, green streamers, green signs, and shamrocks—you can probably find it in green if you can imagine it. I go to https://butlersigns.uk/ every time I need custom signages printed. I personally enjoy using shamrock-shaped napkins and decorations when I host my St. Patrick’s Day gatherings.
Other ideas include using leprechauns, pots of gold, or rainbows as part of the décor. For some reason, leprechauns and treasure have become almost synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day.I love learning about history, particularly Irish history, so I decided to investigate the use of leprechauns for St. Paddy’s Day.
It turns out that originally, leprechauns were portrayed in red, but the colors were changed to green to associate them with their Irish history. They have their own day on May 13th, but many people associate them with St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe the mischievous little sprites would like to have their own holiday again. I like to have a good reason to celebrate.
A fun place to host your party is a deck, patio, or other outdoor space. Hang lights, light fire pits, and decorate as much as possible. A great decorating tip is to hang an Irish flag in your party area.
I host my St. Patrick’s Day meal on our front deck with the fire pit lit–weather permitting, of course. Last year, I offered bangers and mash, which was surprisingly easy to make, but one of our new favorites is corned beef nachos, so I see it making its way onto future menus.
Advertising Your Potluck
You could create fantastic custom St. Patrick’s Day posters and hang them strategically. It’s simple to use the tools at PosterMyWall to make these posters. If you’re hosting friends from work, you might want to post notices regarding your party in the public spaces at work. You can even share your designs on social media as a convenient way to invite your friends to your event.
You could consider using one of these posters to post your menu at your event. Then, everyone who attends will know what you’ve placed in front of them. Or, if you are offering entrée choices, they can decide before sitting down to eat.
I love creating custom neon signs or posters for various stations at my parties. For example, I create a drink station, and posters are a great way to describe the offerings. Also, I have several friends who deal with food sensitivities, so I can create beautiful, themed signage to steer them away from the things they need to avoid.
Food Ideas for Your Potluck
Now for an essential part of a potluck, the food. With a potluck, typically, multiple people contribute to creating the food. You can handle that one of three ways. You can set a menu and let guests choose from the menu, you can assign one part of the meal to each guest (for example, one person brings appetizers, one brings drinks, etc.), or you can allow everyone to choose what they are carrying and let you know what that is going to be.
I’ve handled the menus all of these ways, and they all work. However, my favorite way to do it is to just let my guests know the theme and see what they show up with. Sometimes we have duplicate dishes, but usually we have a nice variety of foods.
There is no wrong way to host a potluck dinner. Either way, you can do strictly traditional foods or green foods. You can do all of one, or you can combine the two.
Traditional Irish Fare
- Shepherd’s Pie: Traditional shepherd’s pie is made with lamb, but you can use whatever ground meat you like. Add garlic, onions, herbs, whatever vegetables you like (my favorite is spring peas and occasionally carrots), and gravy. You cover all of that with mashed potatoes. Some people will add cheese to the top, but that isn’t necessarily traditionally accurate.
- Irish stew: A slow-cooked beef stew is a good, hearty addition, especially if the night is cool—like it can be in March—some fans of traditional Irish stew prefer the flavor if it’s cooked with Guinness. Serve it with soda bread and colcannon for a well-rounded meal.
- Colcannon: Buttered and mashed potatoes with cabbage stirred into them. This is an easy dish to transport if you’d like to have one of your guests bring it.
- Corned beef and cabbage or corned beef nachos: This is semi-traditional because corned beef was actually an adjustment that Irish Americans made to their diets in the early 20th century when they had difficulty finding the Irish bacon they were accustomed to having. Don’t forget that the Irish make their nachos with homemade potato chips rather than tortilla chips.
- Bangers and mash: Bangers are traditional Irish sausages cooked and placed on potatoes. Some people, like me, enjoy layering the mash and sausages on top of a bed of cabbage and onions sauteed together.
Green Foods
- Broccoli
- Asparagus
- A minty cocktail or milkshake
- Greens cooked with tomatoes and garlic
- Grasshopper pie (no, it isn’t made from grasshoppers)
- Stained glass gelatin, which combines multi-colored gelatin and a whipped topping-based dessert.
Recipes for the grasshopper pie, stained glass gelatin, and greens cooked with tomatoes and garlic can all be found on the Taste of Home website, along with several other green food suggestions.
Wrapping It Up
A St. Patrick’s Day potluck can be a fun way to gather with friends to celebrate your Irish heritage or celebrate the holiday. I love St. Patrick’s Day and look forward to celebrating every year. Hopefully, you will try some of these ideas and create your own favorite St. Paddy’s Day traditions.
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