ST PATRICK’S DAY EVEN IN KOREA AS A POPULATION OF ONLY 6.5 MILLION IN IRELAND BUT WITH A 60 MILLION WORLWIDE POPULATION THE HOLIDAY EXPANDS ACROSS THE WORLD–WITH THE LUCK OF THE GREEN

With the number of foreigners in Korea increasing steadily, celebrations of overseas festivals are becoming quite familiar.
On St. Patrick’s Day ― Irish cultural and religious festival ― Koreans and foreigners wore green and drank Guinness together, celebrating the onset of spring.
The globalization of the holiday has found a comfortable niche in Seoul’s expat hangouts of Itaewon and Hongdae, helping outsiders get a taste of what it means to be Irish.
“Irish people like to gather like Koreans, although we don’t drink soju,” said Gerry Brown, an executive at DPR Construction, on March 14 in Itaewon. “We drink Guinness.”
Brown, a Belfast native who moved to America 25 years ago, said the religious holiday has turned into an annual carnival to commemorate St. Patrick, a Romano-British Christian missionary who introduced Catholicism to Ireland in the second half of the fifth century.
“Every Irish celebration involves drinks, music and talking,” he said. “We are very sociable and open with a strong pride in our heritage.”
Brown noted that there are about 6.5 million people in the island of Ireland, but there is about 10 times the population worldwide. Many Irish immigrants settled in the U.S. and U.K. after a devastating famine killed more than a million people in mid-18th century. 

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150322000318