• Go for the green with a St. Patrick's Day party.st patricks day green beer and shamrock image by sparkia from Fotolia.com
  
  Every year on March 17, Irish people and Irish enthusiasts gather to celebrate the life of Saint Patrick, who died in the fifth century. While the holiday is considered a religious one in Ireland, in the United States it is often a cause for partying and carousing in the name of the saint. For your next St. Patrick's Day party, deck out your home with a green theme and tip a glass for Ireland.
  
  

Limerick Lessons

• Give party guests a way to work off their Guinness with Limerick lessons: Irish dancing, not the bawdy poem style. Check an Irish dance school directory such as FeisWorx, which lists schools by state, to inquire about hiring an instructor for a few hours at your party. You can also inquire whether the school would hold a private St. Patrick's Day lesson at their facility for your group. Irish celebrants in the Ohio area, for example, have options such as the Ardan Academy, the Cannon School of Irish Dance, the McGing Irish Dancers, the MacConmara Academy, the Killeen-McCarthy School of Irish Dance and the Celtic Academy of Irish Dance. While your party guests may be familiar with the Irish style of dancing from high-profile shows such as "Riverdance," they'll leave your party with a little bit of knowledge of what actually goes into the difficult activity.
  
  

Go for the Green

• On St. Patrick's Day, people "go for the green" by consuming many pints of green beer; in Chicago, the city's journeymen actually turn the Chicago river emerald green in a nod to the city's Irish residents. For your St. Patrick's Day party, take green beer one step further by dying as much of your party food as you can varying shades of green. Green food coloring works best on light-colored items such as potato salad, vanilla cake, pasta and vodka drinks. Of course, you can also incorporate already-green foods and drinks into your spread, such as broccoli, asparagus, creme de menthe and lettuce for salads. Set up all the foods on a green-tableclothed buffet area along with green paper plates, cups, napkins and flatware.
  
  

Magical Music

• You don't need the luck of the Irish to get your St. Patrick's Day party "reeling" and rolling once you turn on some Irish music. Purchase or download a variety of Irish bands, from collections such as The Celtic Tenors and James Galway to music your guests may recognize (though they may not have known the singers were from Ireland) such as Sinead O'Connor, Clannad, The Corrs and Davy Spilane. For a younger crowd interested in learning new bands, opt for more punkish and upbeat bands such as The Young Dubliners, Gaelic Storm, Enter the Haggis and Seven Nations. Keep a printed playlist by your music player so guests can learn about the music as they're dancing to it.