The Spread

By Taylor Lucero

Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day is upon us. This March, the annual event will be celebrating its ‘unofficial’ 18th year anniversary. According to a fact box from The Daily Illini on March 6, 2009, the event began in 1996 and was created by multi-bar owner Scott Cochrane who said it is “…for students to drink all day.”

Here’s a look back into Unofficial’s history through early advertisements for Unofficial (and even official) St. Patrick’s Day bar events, found in the University of Illinois Achieves.

Advertisement in The Daily Illini March 8, 1995. These bars were advertising for “U of I’s Official St. Patrick’s Day Party” before the creation of Unofficial, which would occur one year later.

Advertisements in The Daily Illini Supplement Page on March 7, 1997. The bottom-right corner showed an ad for “Unnofficial St. Patrick’s Day.”  (It’s spelled like this with two “n’s” in the ad)

Full-page advertisement in Buzz on March 1, 2001. The text at the top stated “Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day” with “U of I” in white font in the word “Unofficial.”