Shamrocks, green beer, and leprechauns are part and parcel of any self-respecting St. Patrick’s Day celebration. But how did the traditions we associate with the March 17 holiday become associated with the feast day of a fifth-century missionary? More often than not, the story is one of cultural appropriation sprinkled with a bit of American ingenuity.

Here’s the truth behind five St. Paddy’s Day symbols.

1. Leprechauns

Do you think of a diminutive green sprite with a pot of gold when you think of Ireland? You’re not alone—the leprechaun is one of the most enduring symbols associated with the nation.

But the modern idea of a leprechaun is a far cry from its origins in Irish folklore along with other tales of fictitious fairies and sprites. These supernatural beings were thought to bring good luck to humans and protect them—or tamper with their plans. The oldest written reference to the creature can be found in a medieval story about three sprites who drag the King of Ulster into the ocean.

References to the luchorpán could be found in generations of folk tales, but it took a generation of 19th-century folklorists and poets like William Butler Yeats to popularize the figure outside of Ireland. Even then, the 19th-century leprechaun was a grouchy goblin shoemaker who lived alone, wore red, and jealously guarded treasure—a far cry from the modern leprechaun who wears green, is cheerful, and lives at the end of a rainbow, where he doles out pots of gold and good luck.

This shift is largely thanks to Walt Disney, whose visit to Ireland inspired the 1960s film Darby O’Gill and the Little People, which featured a leprechaun trickster dressed in the more familiar outfit of green pants and coat, yellow waistcoat, and buckled shoes. This and other midcentury representations of leprechauns, like breakfast cereal Lucky Charms’ mascot, Lucky, promulgated Americans’ love of the small figures.

Shamrocks

Shamrocks—a three-leafed clover long associated with Ireland—are indelibly associated with St. Paddy’s day. There’s just one problem: they don’t exist in real life. “The ‘shamrock’ is a mythical plant, a symbol, something that exists as an idea, shape and color rather than a scientific species,” Smithsonian’s Bess Lovejoy explains.

Though a plant called a scoth-shemrach can be found in Irish myths, the name wasn’t linked with clover until the 16th century. Modern legend has it that St. Patrick used the three-leafed plant to explain the Holy Trinity while preaching, but despite attempts to link the real-life figure to the practice, historians agree it’s a fable.

In the 18th century, the mythical plant was taken up as a symbol of Ireland’s push for independence from Britain alongside the color green. Catholic Irish republicans’ uniforms were a green reminiscent of the isle’s grass. Their Protestant enemies adopted orange to express their identification with William of Orange, who overthrew the Catholic king during the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688.

Today, Ireland’s flag contains both colors, but the shamrock in particular has come to represent the nation as a whole—and also appears on the United Kingdom’s royal coat of arms, which includes a rose for England, a thistle for Scotland, and a shamrock for Northern Ireland.

Green beer and rivers

On St. Patrick’s Day, Ireland’s association with green extends even to beer. Like so many other St. Paddy’s Day traditions, green beer is an American invention. It is thought to have been originated by New York toastmaster and coroner’s physician Thomas H. Curtin, who in March 1914 hosted a St. Patrick’s Day bash that included green decorations and green beer.

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