As a translation company with 8 years industry experience, we have covered pretty much most language combinations you could ever imagine.

From Swahili and Sudanese, to Tagalog and Tamil. We have never had to turn down a translation request yet.

Closer to home, we have carried out countless translations involving Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. And in the week that saw Irish people the world over celebrate St. Patrick Day, we are pleased to report that we’ve also got a fair amount of experience with the Irish language too.

Which leads us to the topic of today’s post. Who exactly was St. Patrick and what is the significance of St. Paddy’s day?

Millions of Irish people the world over adorned themselves in green on March 17 to celebrate Ireland’s national day.

And many countries have strong ancestral ties with Ireland, none more so than the US. Chicago, for example, dyes the whole Chicago River green each year. And the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are also celebration hotspots on St. Paddy’s Day.

Uruguay is an unlikely place of rejoice too each March 17. Celebrated in Montevideo and Punta del Este, St. Patrick’s Day is always warm in Uruguay and people dance and drink beer throughout the night until seven or eight in the morning. Irish music is played in Bartolome Mitre street and Sarandi street in downtown Montevideo, where there are several Irish pubs.

But who was St. Patrick? Well, he was a Roman Britain-born Christian missionary and, when he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish raiders and taken from his native Wales as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family.

After entering the Church, he later returned to Ireland as a missionary in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked and no link can be made between Patrick and any church. But by the eighth century he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland.

And today, with a population of almost 6 million people, Ireland is a country with a long and proud history. But what about their language?

Well, English is the most widely spoken language in Ireland, but there are around half a million ‘everyday speakers’ of the Irish language too, which is a Celtic tongue from the Indo-European language family.

In January 2007, Irish became an official language of the European Union too and is now on the same EU language list as Bulgarian, Maltese and Estonian. And this perhaps goes some way towards explaining why we’ve had an influx of Irish translation requests in the two years since then.

But the main underlying reason, we reckon, is the genuine desire to keep the language alive and kicking; which is the case for all vernaculars the world over.