Sober St. Patrick's Day puts Ireland's saint at center of celebrations, says founder

(OSV News) -- An annual celebration of St. Patrick's Day is looking to recenter the observance on Ireland's patron saint and the spiritual strength that enabled him to live life fully and freely.
In the U.S., the March 17 feast day has long been an occasion for vaguely themed celebrations of Irish culture, with alcoholic drinks figuring prominently in the mix.

But Bill Reilly, founder of Sober St. Patrick's Day, has been working to change that for well over a decade.

"At least in New York, and I'm sure this is true virtually everywhere, most people are not celebrating St. Patrick," Reilly, a former theater and television producer, told OSV News. "And they're not really sure why they're celebrating except to have a good old time. So we really want to stay focused on who it is we're celebrating."

Now in its 14th year, the 2025 Sober St. Patrick's Day gathering, which follows New York City's iconic parade in honor of the saint, will take place March 17 at the Church of Our Saviour in the city's Murray Hill neighborhood, part of the Archdiocese of New York.

The entertainment lineup includes two all-Ireland champion musicians -- fiddler Brian Conway and button accordionist John Whelan -- as well as awarding-winning pipers, dancers and other entertainers.

Tickets are available at soberstpatricksday.org, where participants can also register to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade with the nonprofit's contingent. The website also features resources for establishing additional "Sober St. Patrick's Day" celebrations.

Back in 2011, Reilly was inspired to create an alcohol-free, family-friendly St. Patrick's Day bash that would highlight the best of Irish musical and dance performance, while pointing revelers to the fifth-century saint, who came to be known as the apostle of Ireland.

Born in Britain to a Romanized family, Patrick was captured at age 16 by Irish raiders and spent six years as a slave. During that time, he developed a profound prayer life, and following his escape and reunion with his family, he eventually returned to Ireland to evangelize its people.

Last year, Reilly told OSV News that St. Patrick's "Confession" -- which along with the "Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus" can be definitively attributed to the saint -- had a "great effect" on him.

Reilly's website features a number of resources -- among them, two three-minute videos -- for learning more about St. Patrick and of another patron of Ireland, St. Brigid, who is believed to have been a fifth-century abbess.

Reaction to the videos "has been extraordinary," with many struck by the saint's ability to ultimately forgive his captors and serve those in the land of his exile and slavery, said Reilly.

"I think the video has gotten such attention … because it's landed in a place where people who thought they knew a lot about Patrick didn't take into account that aspect of his evangelizing and of his life, and of his transformative power," Reilly said.

The video has "allowed people to think differently about the dangers of not forgiving, seeing what he did," said Reilly. "It wasn't just like he forgave his brother because he had an argument. He forgave people who enslaved him for six years. That's big time stuff. And then as a result of that, I believe very strongly that's how Ireland got converted."

Another aspect of the saint's legacy that Reilly's celebration highlights is the bond among generations.

"It's the notion of the communal," he explained. "What we're trying to do, and I think what we've done pretty well so far, is allow people to realize that it's really about the interrelationship among human beings. And in the case of St. Patrick's Day, we do that using the depth of Irish culture, because I don't think any nationality has a more intergenerational form of art and music and dance."

For example, he said, traditional Irish music "is the kind of thing where a 6-year-old can be dancing with a 96-year-old."

In fact, said Reilly, there's an Irish word that captures such conviviality: craic (pronounced "crack").

"That sense of great craic and that sense of great community is really at the core of what happens at our event," he said.