Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry describes a St. Patrick’s Day tradition that has been celebrated at engineering schools for more than 120 years. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
As we get ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on Monday, did you know that St. Patrick – the patron saint of Ireland – was also an engineer? Well, at least for many universities he was, who began paying homage to him over 120 years ago.
It was the College of Engineering students at the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) who were the first to “discover” that St. Patrick was an engineer.
And since 1903, UMC engineering students have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) as a holiday set aside for engineers.
In fact, their celebration lasts a week! There are lab exhibits, great fetes, a knighting ceremony, St. Pat.’s Ball, and the coronation of the King and Queen of the engineers. And there is much carnivalesque playing that goes on.
When word got out that St. Patrick was an engineer, others followed suit and celebrated throughout the country – and even Canada caught on.
Legend has it that the discovery that St. Patrick was an engineer began with excavations for the University of Missouri’s Engineering Annex Building.
During the excavation, a stone was unearthed with a message in an ancient language. This message was: “Erin Go Bragh.”
For those of Irish descent, “Erin Go Bragh” translates as “Ireland Forever,” but for the engineers this phrase meant “St. Patrick was an engineer.” The engineers looked to the legend that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland as proof of his engineering skills. They further credit St. Patrick with the invention of calculus.
The University of Missouri engineering students created a knighting ceremony in honor of St. Patrick.
Arnot McCoy Finley (1884-1973) was a student in the Engineering Department and took some great photographs of the early days of the St. Patrick Day activities. Finley, being a knight himself, appears in this next photograph with his fellow Knights of St. Patrick.
Below are two photos taken by Finley, courtesy of the UMC Special Digital Collection via the State Historical Society of Missouri-Columbia. You can view more at SHSMO.
In this first photo, we see St. Patrick with two members of the school band.
Next, we see a St. Patrick’s Day Parade float made by UMC Engineer students on a horse-drawn wagon exhibiting a machine made of bicycle wheels, inspired by their muse St. Patrick.
In 1908 the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), located in Rolla, Missouri, held their own St. Patrick’s Day celebration.
Below is a photo of George Manefee, who served as Missouri S&T’s first St. Patrick to perform the knighting ritual, accompanied by two court representatives.
Iowa State University started its own St. Patrick tradition in 1910 and included a junior-senior baseball game, an engineer’s banquet and ball, and an open house for the departments within the Division of Engineering.
The highlights of the celebration were a man dressed as St. Patrick initiating the outstanding seniors into the Knights of the Order of St. Patrick, and a mile-long parade with oversized snakes and dragons winding their way through Ames, Iowa.
Here is the tradition being carried on in this 1921 photograph featuring St. Patrick and the Engineering Queen with her court and attendants.
A 1922 newspaper clip from the Miami District Daily News announces that the Miami School of Mines, “in accordance with a custom pursued by all engineering schools of the country,” will hold their own observance of St. Patrick’s Day engineer celebrations.
This article reports:
Wild and wooly stunts will be pulled in the physics and chemistry departments, according to Dean Lloyd W. Drake, among them the manufacturer of “wine” under the very eyes of the revenue officers. The celebration will close with a 45-minute program of music and literary numbers.
In 1928 two UMC students were given leading roles in the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
This photo caption reads:
At the University of Missouri, where was started the custom of making St. Patrick’s Day a holiday for engineering students, Marguerite Smith was queen of the St. Pat’s ball this March 17, and Charles Earl Schooley was the saint’s representative.
The tradition continues today. Here are some photographs from Engineers’ Week 2023 at UMC. This was the 120th year!
(Top Left): King and Queen candidates (left to right) Alex Boren, nominated by Omega Chi Epsilon; Katie Bagley, nominated by the Society of Women Engineers; Trenton Foster, nominated by the National Society of Black Engineers; Natalie Camilleri, nominated by the Society of Women Engineers; Tyler Schuster, nominated by the Mizzou Engineering Student Council; Kyarra Gorham, nominated by the National Society of Black Engineers; Timothy Healy, nominated by the Mizzou Engineering Student Council; Jordan Hayes, nominated by the Mizzou Engineering Student Council; Andrew Luebbert, nominated by the Engineering Ambassadors; Sophie Mermelstein, nominated by Pi Beta Phi. (Bottom Left): St. Patrick joins Engineers’ Week Co-Chairs Kate Sherard and Lane Atchison as they prepare to knight seniors and honorary guests; (Right): Engineers’ Week is signified by Jesse Hall’s green dome.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day Peeps!!!
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Note on the header image: shamrocks and stars for St. Patrick’s Day. Illustration credit: https://depositphotos.com/home.html