St patty day meme

How it works

How the meme works is simple: someone writes “Happy St Patty’s Day,” and someone else replies that Patrick is not Patty. Patty is a nickname for Patricia, or a burger. Paddy is the familiar form of the Irish name Pádraig, which English writes as Patrick. In much of Ireland the informal name of the day is Paddy’s Day or St Patrick’s Day. St Pat’s appears. St Patty’s does not, except as an import, often American, that Irish speakers treat as a misspelling.

Marcus Campbell put up PaddyNotPatty.com in 2010 as a running public-service joke. Dublin Airport and Irish papers have posted the same reminder. Cartoonists recycle the two-D versus two-T gag every March. The meme is seasonal. It spikes before 17 March, then goes quiet until the next spring. It does not move the feast. It does not close a U.S. federal office. Ireland treats 17 March as a public holiday. The United States does not, except where a city stages a parade and a street closure of its own.

In 2026 the feast was Tuesday 17 March. From Thursday 3 September 2026 the next 17 March is Wednesday 17 March 2027. The meme will come back in that week. The saint’s day will still be the 17th, parade or no parade, green beer or none.

Why the two spellings fight

Patrick is an English form. Pádraig is the Irish one. Shorten the Irish form and you get Paddy, with dd, the same consonants you hear in the middle of the Gaelic name. Shorten Patricia and you get Patty, with tt. American English often flaps t and d so that “Patty” and “Paddy” sound alike in the middle of a sentence. The ear then writes the wrong letters. That is a sound change, not a second saint.

There is a second reason people avoid Paddy: in British and American English the word has also been used as a slur for an Irishman. Some writers therefore stay with St Patrick’s Day in full and skip both nicknames. That is a clean choice. It is not a reason to substitute Patty. You can refuse a slur without renaming the man Patricia.

Feast date: 17 March every year, traditional date of Patrick’s death. Preferred short form in Ireland: Paddy’s Day or St Patrick’s Day. St Pat’s: used; still not Patty. Patty: Patricia, or a burger, not this saint.

U.S. federal holiday: no. Ireland public holiday: yes. State Patty’s Day is a separate student drinking weekend that started at Penn State, moved off 17 March, and borrowed the wrong spelling on purpose. It is not the feast. It is not Dublin. Do not file it as liturgy.

If the caption needs a nickname, give the saint his two Ds. The burger already has the two Ts.

Using the joke without wrecking the day

A correction meme that shames a stranger in a pub queue is a worse guest than a misspelled banner. The useful version is a caption you write yourself, a classroom poster, or a shop sign you can still read as “17 March.” The facts belong in plain letters: date, parade time, street closures. The joke sits on top if anyone still wants it.

Green clothes, shamrock, and a parade are customs. They are not a spelling test. Corned beef and cabbage is an Irish-American plate, not a required Irish menu. “Top o’ the morning” is stage Irish, not a password. The meme about Patty versus Paddy is one small literacy fight inside a much larger feast. Win the spelling if you care. Keep the 17th either way. Do not let a two-letter gag become the whole religion of the day.