St Patrick's Day had been a religious holiday only until 1903, although many employers in the city and county observed it and gave staff a day off.

But it was a campaign forged in Limerick by the Gaelic League, and backed by both the Catholic and Protestant traditions who share the patron saint, that led to St Patrick's Day being declared a national holiday, of all places, in Westminster.

Dr Moloney, Gouldavoher, said it was James O'Mara MP – of the bacon factory fame – and the Fourth Earl of Dunraven who pushed the legislation through the Commons and the Lords respectively.

And while the current Mayor of Limerick, Kevin Kiely, is backing the publicans' legal bid to open up on Good Friday for Munster versus Leinster, politicians at the turn of the 20th century only backed making March 17 a national holiday as long as the pubs stayed closed.

Dr Moloney said contemporary accounts in the Limerick Leader demonstrated the campaign was a Limerick initiative. Workers in the bacon factories and the draperies proposed to their employers that they should get March 17 off – and pledged they would give up another day in lieu, Dr Moloney said.

"A resolution on the matter was passed by the Limerick branch of the Gaelic League in February 1902. The president of the Limerick branch was a Rev Fr Timothy Lee, who said it was 'a striking commentary on the state into which the country had drifted' that St Patrick's Day was not observed as a national holiday when those introduced by 'foreigners' were observed, by which I presume he meant British national holidays for the queen and so on."

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