The shamrock is the national symbol of Ireland and is incorporated into the President of Ireland’s Coat of Arms. Not surprisingly, the shamrock is used as a symbol for sports teams and to represent things Irish in general.
There are at least two versions of how the Shamrock came to be linked to things Irish. One, and by far the most popular, is that St. Patrick used the three leaves of the shamrock to represent the holy trinity. There seems to be little support for this explanation in his writing but the story persists. The other version is that the three leaves represent the Triple Goddess which predate Christianity in Ireland . Of course, an alternative explanation is that the Irish Shamrock can be traced back to both sources. They are not mutually exclusive.
