For the second year, Nicosia is taking part in global celebrations to mark the March 17 St Patrick’s Day, Ireland’s national day, by lighting the capital’s town hall green for three nights, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week.

The event is part of a growing trend for global monuments to be ‘greened up’ for the annual celebrations.

Nicosia’s lighting ceremony will take place on Tuesday evening March 15 at 6.30pm and will be jointly held by Irish ambassador Nicholas Twist and Nicosia Deputy Mayor Eleni Loucaidou. The event will be open to the public.

In recent years buildings and monuments all around the globe have been floodlit in green to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. The event is referred to as the ‘global greening, as Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle.

St Patrick is believed to have brought Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century. He was originally from Britain from where he was kidnapped by a raiding party and taken to Ireland and used as a slave herder until he escaped six years later.

On returning to Britain, he became a priest but, according to legend, kept hearing the voice of the Irish people in his dreams calling on him to return and save them.

He used to shamrock to teach them the Christian notion of three persons in one God.  St Patrick is also credited with driving all of the snakes out of Ireland using his staff.