Toronto Public Library shares vintage St. Paddy's Day postcards

St. Patrick's Day celebrations are well underway,and while the holiday is not quite what it once was in the early 1900s, it hasbecome a global celebration of all things Irish, often involving green beer and fake shamrock tattoos.

But the Toronto Public Library is reminding people that those emblems of St. Paddy's Day have been around for some time.

The library is sharing some of its collection of St. Paddy's Daypostcards from the early 1900s that weresent to loved ones overseas.

The postcards are rich with symbolism of Irish folklore.

The first dates back to 1908, showing a girl chasinga pig through a four-leaf clover.

"You would need luck to catch a small pigbut the pig was also seemingly a good-luck symbol," the library website says.

The card was sent from Toronto to a Miss Evelyn Rugg, who wasliving on Parliament Street at the time.

On the back of the second postcardis the romanticmessage:"My Dear MissRugg, Yours to night, last night and tomorrow night and forever," mysteriously signedwith only initials.

The library says the"Cad mle filte" / "A Hundred Thousand Welcomes" greeting dates back to 1914and was sent from Toronto to a Mr.Fred Baird in Rome.

It features an illustration of abiplane, which the library says was a relatively new technology at the time.

Those interested in seeing more of the library's postcard collection can visit the digital archive, which alsoincludes rare historical pictures, maps, manuscripts and digitized books.