A Norwegian-American friend sent this to me the other day; he swears it is all true:

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17th in commemoration of that historical figure's act of driving the Norwegians out of Ireland.

It seems that centuries ago, many Norwegians came to Ireland to escape the bitterness of Norwegian winters. Ireland was having a famine at the time and food was very scarce.

The Norwegians were eating all the fish caught in the sea, leaving the Irish with nothing but potatoes. St. Patrick, taking matters into his own hands, decided that the Norwegians had to go. Secretly, he organized IRATRION (Irish Republican Army to Rid Ireland of Norwegians). Members sabotaged all the power plants, hoping the fish the Norwegians kept in refridgerators would spoil, forcing the Norwegians to a colder climate where their fish would keep. The fish spoiled, all right, but the Norwegians, as everyone knows, thrive on spoiled fish.

Faced with failure, the Irish sneaked into the Norwegians' fish storage caves in the dead of night and sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian intruders. But, miraculously, the Norwegians thrived on this new concoction and dubbed the smelly lye-doaked fist "Lutefisk".

Matters became even worse for the Irish when the Norwegians stared taking over the Irish potato crop and making lefsa. Poor St. Patrick was at his with's end, and finally, on March 17th, he blew his top and told the Norwegians to go to Hell. It worked; all the Norwegians left Ireland and moved to Minnesota.

Oops. That's lye-soaked and wit's.

Chicago gives us a green river on St. Patrick's Day. You turn the entire Columbia River Gorge green. That's the kind of respect the Irish are looking for. My people thank you.

LOL...

The problem is, St. Patrick preceded the Norwegians by about four hundred years.

And Patrick was a Briton.

My friend would lie to me?

I suspected as much after i read the bit about power plants.

I know a guy who swears that St. Patrick was an Italian.

Well, he wasn't Irish. He was born in Britain, but his father was a Roman, so I guess that makes him an Italian - Englishman but a naturalized citizen of Ireland.