Leprechauns, green beer, being pinched and four-leaf clovers may be inexplicably linked to the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations Sunday, but these shenanigans weren’t always the focus of the Irish holiday.

“It initially was a very religious holiday in Ireland and when they found out how much fun we are having over here, they began to celebrate it,” said Ralph VanLoton, president of the Irish-American Club of Mid-Michigan. “They saw the wingdings we have in the U.S. and said ‘Let’s go for it’ and now their celebrations are becoming more like ours.”

The club, which boasts more than 200 members from around the Lansing area, was founded as the Gaelic League during the late-70s by Irish immigrants at MSU.

And VanLoton said those celebrating St. Patrick’s Day should be happy about the upbeat tone that the holiday has taken over the years.

“It used to be a solemn feast day and it came around to us,” he said. “So they exported the holiday to us and we exported the holiday back to them.”

This year, in Dublin, Ireland’s eighth annual St. Patrick’s Festival will be a four day celebration filled with music, fireworks, an international carnival and a treasure hunt.

The holiday traditionally celebrates St. Patrick and his spread of Christianity throughout Ireland and his apparent rid of paganism from the country.

But the tradition of drinking large quantities of beer and dressing in green to mark the occasion seems to make many Americans happy, celebrating with vigor whether they’re full-blood Irish, one sixteenth Irish, or not Irish at all.

“I really enjoy it because it’s a great celebration of being Irish and all the years of suffering, with the 900 years of enslavement at the hands of the British and the potato famine,” VanLoton said. “Ireland’s population was diminished by 5,000 by starvation and immigration so this is kind of a balance to the suffering that the Irish are accustomed to.

“If you’re not Irish, you don’t know what it’s like to be Irish, and on this day, everyone gets to be Irish.”

History Professor Samuel Thomas said the transition from somber celebration to bars filled with beer drinking, excited Irish and tourists is relatively recent.

“Friends of mine that live in Ireland tell me until the 1970s, St. Patty’s Day was a holy day in Ireland and the pubs were closed, which is ironic concerning the reputation today,” he said. “Since that time, partly for commercial reasons and to showcase Dublin, they’ve secularized this four-day festival and it’s become a sort of mid-Lent break because while it’s not wild like Mardi Gras, it’s a pretty big celebration.”

Thomas said the United States began celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in the early 18th century, and the first St. Patrick’s Day parade occurred in New York City during the mid-19th century.

And celebrations today are not limited to only Ireland and America. Countries like Japan and Australia also take part in the holiday, which Thomas said has become more commercialized over the years.

“Of course that’s good for business and tourism,” he said. “Ireland draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to the festival and in New York City, tens of thousands of people come to be part of the festivities.

“It’s become secularized, no doubt about it, but that’s the way of the world.”

And for some, hitting the bars and seeking out green beer is a more popular activity than reflecting on the hundreds of years of history behind St. Patrick’s Day.

Supply chain management senior Zach Leister said partying at MSU in East Lansing was a switch from high school, especially with the popularity of drinking beer dyed green.

“It wasn’t a big deal until I came to school,” he said. “I went to Crunchy’s last year and it was pretty packed. “But not everyone believes the bar and party tradition of green beer is necessary.

Rex Halfpenny, director of operations for the Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville, said green beer shouldn’t cause the commotion that it does.

“Making green beer is the easiest thing in the world,” he said. “Just a couple of drops of dye and that’s the extent of it.”

And Halfpenny said because of the simplicity of just slipping some dye in your drink, beer is beer without the trouble.

“Our beers are so fully flavorful already and we don’t believe putting dye in enhances it in any other way,” he said. “Other places may decide it makes it more festive.”

Halfpenny said green beer is not the key to having an enjoyable St. Patrick’s Day.

“I think the thing is that for St. Patrick’s Day, a lot of people want to take off work and do something different and strange,” he said. “But the tradition is really about enjoying good drinks with friends, having good conversations and camaraderie and we can do that without food coloring.”

And the brewery will celebrate the holiday this weekend with live music and food, minus the green beer.

Halfpenny said visitors to the event and Michiganians in general should look forward to the tastes of Michigan brewed beer during the holiday.

“We believe that in this day and age, enjoying beer in moderation is key,” he said. “Our beer is best enjoyed as a couple or a few at a time as opposed to mass produced products like 30-packs where mass consumption is endorsed.”

Still, mass consumption of alcohol on St. Patrick’s Day is a phenomenon not likely to end soon.

“I’m hoping to just go to a party or something because I really want to drink green beer,” business and French freshman Melodi Wolf said. “It’s just the fact that it’s green beer.”