St. Patrick's Day Trivia for Kids
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97 free St. Patrick's Day Trivia for Kids trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
St. Patrick's Day trivia for kids should be green, silly and just a little bit surprising: why we wear green, what a shamrock has to do with anything, whether Saint Patrick really chased out the snakes, and how a river in Chicago ends up bright green every March. These 97 questions start with the easy stuff and work up to the real history behind the holiday. The set covers Saint Patrick's actual life story, shamrocks and four-leaf clovers, leprechauns and pots of gold, parades and the Chicago River, Irish words and traditions, and a few fun records like landmarks going green around the world. Every answer is checked against a cited source and each explanation adds one more fact. Use it for a classroom party, a family dinner or a car ride to the parade. Play a round now and see how many you can get right.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which date is St. Patrick's Day celebrated?
March 17
St. Patrick's Day is March 17, the date on which Saint Patrick is traditionally said to have died in the year 461.
Q 02Which two other saints share the title of patron saint of Ireland with Patrick?
Brigid and Columba
Brigid and Columba join Patrick as Ireland's patron saints; Brigid of Kildare founded a famous monastery there, and Columba, also called Colmcille, founded the monastery on Iona in 563.
Q 03Where was Saint Patrick actually born?
Britain
Patrick was born in Britain when it was a Roman province, in the late 300s or early 400s; his father Calpurnius was a deacon and a town official there.
Q 04How did the teenage Patrick first end up in Ireland?
He was captured by Irish pirates
Irish pirates captured Patrick from his family's home when he was about sixteen and carried him across the sea to be sold as a slave; he escaped years later on a ship.
Q 05How many years was Patrick held as a slave in Ireland before he escaped?
Six
Patrick spent six years as a slave in Ireland before escaping; his Confessio says he prayed up to a hundred times a day and fled after a dream told him a ship was waiting.
Q 06Irish farmers planted potatoes after St. Patrick's Day expecting what to improve?
The weather
Tradition held that the weather would improve once St. Patrick's Day had passed, so Irish farmers waited until after the feast to plant their potatoes for the year.
Q 07According to legend, what did Saint Patrick use the shamrock to explain?
The Holy Trinity
Legend says Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity, one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the story was first recorded in writing in 1726.
Q 08Which creatures did Saint Patrick supposedly chase out of Ireland?
Snakes
Legend says Saint Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland; the tale first appears in a life of the saint written by the monk Jocelin of Furness in the 1180s.
Q 09Why is the snake story about Saint Patrick definitely a legend?
Ireland never had any snakes after the Ice Age
Ireland never had any snakes after the Ice Age: rising seas cut the island off before they could spread north, and the Roman writer Solinus remarked on their absence in the third century.
Q 10What colour do people wear on St. Patrick's Day?
Green
People wear green on St. Patrick's Day, the colour of the shamrock and of Irish identity; an American tradition says anyone not wearing green gets pinched.
Q 11What tiny mischievous creature from Irish folklore is often shown as a shoemaker guarding a pot of gold?
A leprechaun
A leprechaun is the Irish fairy shoemaker of folklore; the word comes from the Irish leipreachán, and tales say he hides his gold and vanishes the moment you look away.
Q 12In Irish folklore, where is the little shoemaker's pot of gold supposed to be hidden?
At the end of the rainbow
Good luck finding it: the end of a rainbow moves every time you do.
Q 13Which US city dyes its river bright green every year for St. Patrick's Day?
Chicago
Chicago first dyed its river green for St. Patrick's Day in 1962, and the secret orange powder turns bright green as it hits the water.
Q 21In which Irish county is Saint Patrick said to be buried?
Down
Saint Patrick is said to be buried at Down Cathedral in County Down, where a granite slab carved with the name Patric has marked the traditional grave since 1900.
Q 22What is Ireland's national symbol, seen on its coins and coat of arms?
A harp
A harp is Ireland's official emblem, shown on its euro coins and the state coat of arms; the harp on the royal arms of the United Kingdom also stands for Ireland.
Q 23Botanically speaking, what makes a four-leaf clover special?
It is a rare mutation of the ordinary three-leaved plant
Q 14St. Patrick's Day parades began on which continent, long before Ireland held any?
North America
The first St. Patrick's Day parades were held in North America: Irish soldiers marched through New York City in 1762, well over a century before Ireland held one.
Q 15Which Irish city held the very first St. Patrick's Day parade in Ireland?
Waterford
Waterford staged Ireland's first St. Patrick's Day parade in the early 1900s; Dublin did not hold an official state-sponsored parade until 1931.
Q 16What does the Irish greeting 'céad míle fáilte', seen on signs, mean?
A hundred thousand welcomes
Céad míle fáilte means 'a hundred thousand welcomes': céad is hundred, míle is thousand and fáilte is welcome, which is why the phrase greets visitors at Irish airports and shops.
Q 17Which Caribbean island counts St. Patrick's Day as a public holiday?
Montserrat
Montserrat was settled by Irish Catholics in the 1600s and keeps St. Patrick's Day as a public holiday; the day also remembers a slave uprising planned for the feast in 1768.
Q 18Which two landmarks launched Tourism Ireland's Global Greening for St. Patrick's Day in 2010?
The Sydney Opera House and Auckland's Sky Tower
The Sydney Opera House and Auckland's Sky Tower were the first two sites lit green for Tourism Ireland's Global Greening in 2010; hundreds of landmarks worldwide later joined.
Q 19What is Saint Patrick's Day called in the Irish language?
Lá Fhéile Pádraig
Lá Fhéile Pádraig is the Irish name for the day; lá means day and Pádraig is Patrick, and the traditional greeting is Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh.
Q 20What is Seachtain na Gaeilge, held in Ireland in the fortnight before St. Patrick's Day?
Irish Language Week
Seachtain na Gaeilge is Irish Language Week, a celebration of the Irish language that runs from the start of March up to St. Patrick's Day, with events in schools and communities.
About one in every 5,000 clovers has four leaves, according to a huge European survey.
Q 24Roughly how many ordinary clovers would you have to search to find one four-leaf clover?
5,000
A survey of millions of clovers found one four-leaf clover for roughly every 5,000 ordinary ones, twice as common as the old saying of one in 10,000.
Q 25What is a person supposed to gain by kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland?
The gift of the gab
Kissing the Blarney Stone is said to give the gift of the gab, meaning great skill at talking; the stone is set high in the battlements of Blarney Castle, built in 1446.
Q 26The 'drowning the shamrock' custom ends St. Patrick's Day by putting a shamrock where?
In the bottom of a cup
The cup is filled up, the shamrock is either swallowed or tossed over the shoulder for luck.
Q 27Which river flows through the centre of Dublin?
The Liffey
The Liffey flows through the centre of Dublin and out into Dublin Bay; it rises in the Wicklow Mountains and is crossed in the city by O'Connell Bridge.
Q 28The Irish stepdancing show that became a worldwide hit in 1994 was called what?
Riverdance
Riverdance began as a seven-minute interval act at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, starring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, before growing into a full stage show.
Q 29Which Canadian province gives its government workers the day off for St. Patrick's Day?
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador treats St. Patrick's Day as a provincial government holiday; Irish fishermen settled the island from the 1700s and roughly one in five residents claims Irish roots.
Q 30What did astronaut Chris Hadfield do for St. Patrick's Day 2013 aboard the ISS?
Wore green and sang Danny Boy
Chris Hadfield wore green and sang Danny Boy aboard the space station on St. Patrick's Day 2013, and he posted a photo of Dublin at night taken from orbit.