Shamrock Shamrock A shamrock is a young sprig, used as a symbol of Ireland. Saint Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, is said to have used it as a metaphor for the Christian Holy Trinity. The name "shamrock" comes from Irish , which is the diminutive of the Irish word for plant () and means simply "little plant" or "young plant". "Shamrock" usually refers to either the species (lesser clover, Irish: ) or (white clover, Irish: ). However, other three-leaved plants—such as , , and —are sometimes called shamrocks. The shamrock was traditionally used for its medicinal properties and was a popular motif
What Is to Be Done? (novel) based on his own ideas of moral responsibility. Vladimir Lenin, however, found it inspiring and named a 1902 pamphlet "What Is To Be Done?". Lenin is said to have read the book five times in one summer, and according to Professor Emeritus of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Stanford, Joseph Frank, 'Chernyshevsky's novel, far more than Marx's "Capital", supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution.' The novel mentions (in the 4th dream of Vera Pavlovna) aluminium as the "metal of the future". In fact aluminium became widely used only starting with World War I (1914).