It’s one of the best celebrations of the year, and 2023 St. Patrick’s Day will be no exception to that annual rule. The holiday was originally celebrated in Ireland and brought to the United States by immigrants that settled here. 

And though there are distinct pockets of people with Irish roots in certain parts of the country (more on that later), St. Patrick’s Day has become a holiday celebrated in all 50 states.

But which states are most passionate about dressing up in green, enjoying some corned beef and bread, and sinking a pint of Guinness? We’re glad you asked. We looked at the data across all 50 states to determine which ones are most excited about the celebration.

Methodology

We used Google Trends data for the search term St Patrick's Day and its associated related terms. We took a five-year period, examining search results in the 30 days leading up to St Patrick's Day in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and this year. States were assigned a score that weighed the number of total searches for St Patrick's Day in the given time period (volume) against the total population for that state. States scored highest when they had the largest number of total searches relative to their population size (therefore 'most excited' about St Patrick's Day).

Here's what we found:

As far as food goes, West Virginia is most well-known for its pepperoni rolls, which originally came from Italian immigrants. 

But maybe the state should start adding some more corned beef to menus given that it topped our list—and scored a perfect 100 in two of the last five years. The rest of the top-5 had a more Midwest vibe, with Missouri, Washington D.C., Kansas, and Illinois rounding out the list at the top.

Most Excited For St Patrick's Day 2023

How Did The Northeast Fare?

The Northeast—specifically New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island—have swarms of Irish ancestry. But those states didn’t fare incredibly well in our research, with New Hampshire (25th), Massachusetts (18th), and Rhode Island (8th) all finishing in the top half of states—but none in the top-5. Maybe Mass residents will be too busy on Massachusetts betting apps this year, after the launch of online betting in the state on March 10.

One major outlier was Maine, which didn’t score in any years between 2019 and 2022 but then led the way among all states in 2023. We guess you’ll want to go as far Northeast as you can to find the best St. Paddy’s Day celebrations.

Speaking of outliers, what happened in Wyoming in 2020? The state didn’t score on the list in 2019 and threw out three goose eggs from 2021 to 2023, but had the second highest score (95) behind only those wild Mountaineers of West Virginia in 2020. 

Who Are the Partypoopers?

Looking for states to avoid this year when partying? Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, and Utah all had their lowest scores in 2023. We won’t blame Hawaii, though—it’s the least populated state among Irish descendants, and it’s more than 7,000 miles between Dublin and Hawaii.

States where 2023 marked the highest score of this five-year period? Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Oregon, Oklahoma, Ohio, Maine, Kansas, Florida, and Washington, D.C.