Teresa Santoski

As the saying goes, everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. People around the world attend parades, eat corned beef and cabbage and wear green to celebrate the holiday.

But when it comes to wearing green, should you opt for a T-shirt with a shamrock on it or a four-leaf clover? What’s the difference, anyway?

Let’s take a look at the shamrock first. In essence, a shamrock is a particular species of clover with three leaves. If a clover has more or less than three leaves, it’s not considered a shamrock. The shamrock is one of the official state emblems of Ireland, and it is closely associated with St. Patrick, who is Ireland’s patron saint.

According to legend, St. Patrick, who is credited with introducing Christianity to Ireland, used the shamrock to explain the concept of the Trinity. Just as the three individual leaves make up the shamrock, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit make up the Trinity. Three separate and distinct Persons, yet also One.

A four-leaf clover, on the other hand, is a three-leaf clover that has a fourth leaf due to a rare genetic mutation. The leaves of the four-leaf clover are said to represent faith, hope, love and luck. Since four-leaf clovers are so scarce, they’ve come to be associated with good luck in general because you’re pretty lucky if you can find one.

Though the four-leaf clover is associated with Ireland, it doesn’t have a connection to St. Patrick, and it isn’t an official state emblem of Ireland. In the context of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, the shamrock therefore seems to be the more accurate choice to adorn your clothing, your accessories and your décor.

And yet, it can be challenging to find such items with shamrocks on them because most people don’t bother to distinguish between shamrocks and four-leaf clovers.

For example, I recently searched for shamrock T-shirts on my favorite clothing website. Three results came up, and all three featured a four-leaf clover rather than a shamrock.

I tried searching for clover T-shirts to see if that might give me different options, and it unfortunately did. The sole result was a shirt with a list of St. Patrick’s Day emblems written on it. The list includes shamrocks and clovers, which seems a bit redundant since shamrocks are clovers – they just aren’t four-leaf clovers.

But even though that shirt has the word “shamrock” written on it, it didn’t come up when I searched for a shamrock T-shirt. And none of the shirts with four-leaf clovers on them appeared in the results when I searched for a clover T-shirt.

It’s no wonder people are confused as to which is which and which is associated with St. Patrick’s Day when many of the businesses selling holiday merchandise completely mix things up. You certainly can’t fault someone for thinking the four-leaf clover on their T-shirt is a shamrock when that’s what it says in the product description.

But that’s the wonderful thing about St. Patrick’s Day. Even though it’s helpful to know the difference between a shamrock and a four-leaf clover and that the shamrock is the more appropriate choice for the holiday, no one is going to criticize you for wearing something with a four-leaf clover on it.

There aren’t any particular rules you need to follow in order to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. You don’t have to be Irish, and you don’t have to know anything about Irish culture. You can simply enjoy the festivities and be part of another culture for a day – no matter who you are or where you come from.

You would expect to see St. Patrick’s Day parades in cities with large Irish populations like Boston and New York City, but how about in Tokyo? Being on almost the other side of the world from Ireland, Japan may seem like an unlikely country to celebrate the holiday, but Tokyo has held an annual St. Patrick’s Day parade and Irish cultural festival since 1992.

The festivities include all-Japanese Irish step-dancing groups and pipe bands and even shamrock-wearing samurai. People play Irish games, eat Irish food, drink Guinness and shop for Irish-themed gifts. They even have cotton candy in the colors of the Irish flag. How marvelous is that?

On St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Irish the rest of the year or whether you mix up shamrocks and four-leaf clovers. Regardless of our backgrounds or the differences between us, we can all come together as one – just like the leaves on a shamrock.

Tete-a-tete is published monthly. Teresa Santoski can be reached at tsantoski@gmail.com or via www.teresasantoski.com.