--- title: The St. Patrick's Day Green River Is a Meme Dream Come True description: People are transforming the Chicago river dyed green for St. Patrick's Day into endlessly imaginative green screen memes. canonical: https://time.com/5553397/green-river-chicago/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-03-18T10:08:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:58:09.245Z og:title: The St. Patrick's Day Green River Is a Meme Dream Come True og:description: Where you see festive green, someone else sees wildfire from 'Game of Thrones' og:url: https://time.com/5553397/green-river-chicago/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltae61dda6620ba290/698946d54ee2622af33142ef/greenriverchicago.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5600 og:image:height: 3150 og:image:alt: The Chicago River Goes Green For St. Patrick's Day 2019 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The St. Patrick's Day Green River Is a Meme Dream Come True twitter:description: Where you see festive green, someone else sees wildfire from 'Game of Thrones' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltae61dda6620ba290/698946d54ee2622af33142ef/greenriverchicago.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The St. Patrick's Day Green River Is a True Meme Dream Come True > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=a211cef9-e999-41e5-99da-3c914870a7eb&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Mar 18, 2019 10:08 AM UTC  The Chicago River, after members of Plumbers Local 130 U.A. poured environmentally safe orange powder along the Chicago River turning it green for St. Patrick's Day. The Chicago River, after members of Plumbers Local 130 U.A. poured environmentally safe orange powder along the Chicago River turning it green for St. Patrick's Day. Raymond Boyd—Getty Images by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Mar 18, 2019 10:08 AM UTC You can always count on [St. Patrick’s Day](http://time.com/4705168/sean-spicer-tie-photoshop/) for some good old green screen fun. The Chicago, Ill. river gets dyed a festive bright green every year to celebrate [St. Patrick’s Day](http://time.com/4261456/st-patrick-day-2016-history-real-saint/) every year, but this year the green screen potential did not go untapped. Memes might not have been part of the masterplan for the city when they chose the perfect shade of [bright shamrock green](http://time.com/5550579/shamrock-history/), but as soon as people online noticed that the bright shade of chartreuse was the ideal green screen match, Twitter users got busy switching things up. Shenanigans ensued as people went to town, and their handiwork is pretty impressive. The transformative results have everything from a lava lake to the _Avengers Endgame_ trailer. The body of water became an internet star. Perhaps this is how we should celebrate holidays all the time — by affording the internet some lighthearted fun. Take yourself to the St. Patrick’s Day river memes below. > [](https://twitter.com/kintarasu/status/1106963393531920385) > [](https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1107392171857117185) > [](https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1107392171857117185) > [](https://twitter.com/TwoClawsMedia/status/1107309135400439808) > [](https://twitter.com/LeanMeanKorean/status/1107392817427607552) > [](https://twitter.com/theBjrd/status/1107339569429651456) Another on reddit imagined the river full of deadly wildfire, the volatile green liquid from Game of Thrones that the Alchemists’ Guild oversees. Dying the river green is a [time-honored Windy City tradition](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/16/us/man-dyes-chicago-river-green-st-patricks-day-trnd/index.html) that dates all the way back to 1962\. This year, police officer Tom Rowan did the honors of spreading the dye, to the delight of people in the city. “The original Mayor Daley in the 1950s wanted to do something special, he wanted to dye the whole of Lake Michigan green. But it was just too huge to do. The next best thing was the Chicago River,” Rowan told [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/16/us/man-dyes-chicago-river-green-st-patricks-day-trnd/index.html). Going completely green is a two-boat operation. One boat churns, and the other dubbed the “Mixmaster” stirs it all up to spread it evenly. Strangely enough, the dye is an orange powder concocted with a vegetable base that’s safe for the environment, but you’ll need more than the luck of the Irish to know what’s really in it. “It’s like the Coca Cola recipe — we don’t tell anyone,” Rowan said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5553397/green-river-chicago/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5553397/green-river-chicago/"},"headline":"The St. Patrick's Day Green River Is a True Meme Dream Come True","datePublished":"2019-03-18T10:08:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:58:09.245Z","description":"Where you see festive green, someone else sees wildfire from 'Game of Thrones'","url":"https://time.com/5553397/green-river-chicago/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","onetime","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltae61dda6620ba290/698946d54ee2622af33142ef/greenriverchicago.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltae61dda6620ba290/698946d54ee2622af33142ef/greenriverchicago.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Chicago River Goes Green For St. Patrick's Day 2019","caption":"Green river Chicago","creditText":"Raymond Boyd—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5553397/green-river-chicago/","name":"The St. Patrick's Day Green River Is a True Meme Dream Come True"}}]}] ```