Why the Irish Hated the Color Green

It may be the color associated with St. Patrick's Day, but Irish people feared the color green for much of their history.

Green, now associated with St. Patrick and the rich colors of Irish grassland, was associated with fever and death by previous generations.

That was likely exacerbated by the Irish potato famine from 1845 to 1852, in which more than a million people died of starvation. People sometimes took on a green pallor before they died, adding to people's anxiety about the color.

In a 1905 collection, entitled Family Monographs: The History of Twenty-Four Families Living in the Middle West Side of New York City, researcher Elsa Goldina Herzfeld chronicled the life of Irish immigrants and other families in West Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century.

It shows that the Irish were deeply superstitious and afraid to wear green.

"The Irish believe that wearing green will cause death," Herzfeld writes. "One girl bought green material for a dress...Soon after she and her brother were 'seized with a fever'," Herzfeld recorded an Irish family as telling her. They told her the girl's brother died "and she was sick for a long time."

Herzfeld's report is included in a digitized archive called The Making of America, organized by the University of Michigan.

Other Irish people feared green because they believed supernatural fairy people wore green and hated to see humans wear their colors.

This belief that the small but powerful fairy people wore green later became the mischievous, green-suited leprechaun that people associate with St. Patrick's Day.

The Irish writer, Suzanne Winterly, wrote on her website in July 2021 that green was often considered unlucky in Ireland.

"Oddly enough, the color green is sometimes considered by some to be unlucky in Ireland. This is strange because green is our national color, but apparently the superstition comes from folklore about fairies wearing green."

"Fairies in Ireland aren't considered sweet, harmless creatures who grant you your wishes with a twinkle of their wand. Fairies can be nasty, malevolent little demons who cast wicked spells and curses on those who annoy them," she wrote.

In the lead-up to St. Patrick's Day in 2004, Bridget Haggerty, who runs the website Irish Culture and Customs, told National Geographic magazine that, according to superstition, the color green was thought to bring bad luck because it was the favorite color of the fairy folk, who were also known as the "Good People."

The Good People were unpredictable, according to Irish folklore, and were known to steal people away—especially children—who enticed fairy folk by wearing too much of their favorite color, she told National Geographic.

Christina Mahony, who was then acting director of Catholic University's Center for Irish Studies in Washington D.C., told National Geographic at the time that the association of green with Ireland's national saint is a misconception.

The original color assigned to St. Patrick was blue, Mahony said. This color, St. Patrick's blue, can be seen on ancient Irish flags and on the uniforms the Irish special forces wear to this day, she added.