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The St Patrick’s Festival has become one of Montserrat’s most popular annual events. This year mark’s the return to the island's first in-person festival since Celebrate Afro-Caribbean and Irish heritage on the Caribbean island of Montserrat at St Patrick’s Festival, a 10-day event full of music, revelry and rum. Since becoming a national holiday in 1985, the ten-day St. Patrick’s celebration is filled with parades, lectures, and parties to honor the uprising and celebrate the island’s history. Montserrat rebranded itself globally as the “Emerald Isle of the Caribbean” after volcanic activity buried the former capital city of Plymouth and its In 1984, St Patrick’s Day was officially declared a national holiday. Speaking on a panel discussion on Tuesday, Gracelyn Cassell, the Head of the UWI Open Campus in Montserrat, cleared up myths that the event started in a community called St Patrick’s. The only nation after Ireland to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as a national holiday, the tiny island is affectionately known as the ‘Emerald Isle of the Caribbean’. With a unique mix of African and Irish history, the green isle south of St. Kitts and west of Antigua goes into full Irish mode from March 8 –17 with a roster of spirited The British Caribbean territory is the one place in the world where St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated as a public holiday for an entire week, not just on March 17. Credit: The Montserrat Tourism On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the St. Patrick's Day festivities go on for an entire week! While St. Patrick's Day was once a one-day only event in Montserrat, the celebration of all Modern St. Patrick’s Day activities in Montserrat are an often uneasy balancing act between commemoration and celebration. In recent years, the festival started with a ceremonial torch lighting Dark history of Irish emigration laid bare in exhibition on Ireland's links to Caribbean. The St Patrick’s festival in Montserrat is a 15-day celebration of culture, history and food, running from March 17 to March 31. Like most parades, the Montserrat festival has performers, masquerade dancers, games and food. African-inspired events such as the freedom run and masquerade dancing commemorate the slave history in Montserrat, specifically an unsuccessful uprising that took place on St. Patrick’s Day in Local historian Sir Howard Fergus explains that the first large-scale rebellion on Montserrat was planned in 1768 for March 17 th, the day that slaves knew their Irish masters would be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and otherwise distracted with drink and dance (History of Alliouagana: A Short History of Montserrat, 1975). As the story goes Montserrat’s celebration of St. Patrick’s Festival is linked to the history of enslavement of African people. In 1768, a group of the enslaved planned a rebellion to coincide with the March 17th celebration that was being held at Government House. Read about St. Patrick's Day in Montserrat in 2025. St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is a widely known historic figure. But for all his celebrity, his life remains somewhat of a mystery. Montserrat St Patrick’s Day Festival The origins of the modern-day celebrations of Saint Patrick’s Day in Montserrat started not in St Patrick’s village but at the Montserrat Secondary School in 1972 with a Know Your Past project. With participation from teachers and students, it featured an exhibition on March 17th, 1972, that As Dr. Howard A. Fergus outlines in his book St Patrick’s Day Celebration in Montserrat: A History, the origins of the festival date back to 1972, when the Montserrat Secondary School had a Know Your Past exhibition that highlighted Montserrat historical events through art, music, and drama. A t just over 17km long and 11km wide, and tucked just south of Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat is one of the Caribbean’s lesser-known islands. It has all the usual draws you’d expect from a tropical island – unspoilt beaches, thriving coral reefs, rainforest-covered hills – but what may surprise visitors the most is its rich Afro-Irish heritage, which can be seen and felt all over the Montserrat is the only place outside of Ireland and two provinces in Canada where St. Patrick's Day is a public holiday. On St. Patrick's Day in 1768, enslaved Africans on the island attempted a St. Patrick’s Day became a public holiday in 1985. However, the journey to making it a day to honour the martyrs began in the 70s. Over the years, due to various groups and individuals, the festival has evolved beyond cultural activities such as the lecture and the Heritage Feast to international shows, fetes with multiple DJs and fundraising St. Patrick’s Day is a global celebration of Irish culture that takes place annually on March 17, the anniversary of the patron saint of Ireland's death in the fifth century. The holiday has The island of Montserrat is known as the "Emerald Island of the Caribbean" because of its founding by Irish refugees from Saint Kitts and Nevis. Montserrat is one of three places where St Patrick's Day is a public holiday, along with Ireland and the Canadian province of Newfoundland & Labrador. The holiday in Montserrat also commemorates a failed slave uprising that occurred on 17 March 1768. Let's dive deeper into learning more about the history of St. Patrick’s Day in Montserrat and why people celebrate or observe it. History of St. Patrick’s Day in Montserrat and How to Celebrate/ Observe It. St. Patrick’s Day is a public holiday in Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean.
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