Rolling In Clover

St. Patrick's Day is over.
Now... why is its symbol a 4 leaf clover?

At least, I've been seeing that for years as the symbol. But when I was a kid, and to this day in Ireland, shamrocks are shown as having 3 leaves.

I think the idea of the luck of the Irish somehow ran together with the luck of finding a 4 leaf clover.

But American ideas of how to celebrate Ireland often seem odd to the Irish.

In Ireland, green beer
does not appear.