Lá Fhéile Pádraig! Happy Saint Patrick’s Day from Ireland! As the Irish people have spread around the globe, they have taken their traditions and celebrations with them. With an estimated 70 million people claiming Irish heritage world- wide, it is no wonder everybody seems to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day (the national holiday of the Irish people). I have always celebrated the secular side of St. Patrick’s Day, but admittedly did not know much about the history of the patron saint of Ireland. So I talked to some local Irish folks, and learned why we delight in drinking green beer every March 17th. Saint Patrick is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland who is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. The Irish celebrate Paddy’s Day (colloquially) on March 17th because that is believed to be the anniversary of St. Patrick’s death in 460 AD. Most of what is known about St. Patrick’s life comes from his two works, the Confessio and the Epistola. St. Patrick is most famous for driving the snakes from Ireland. It is true that there are no snakes in Ireland, but there probably never were because the island was separated from the rest of the European continent at the end of the Ice Age. As in many old pagan religions, serpent symbols were common and often worshipped. Driving the snakes from Ireland was probably symbolic of putting an end to that pagan practice. While not the first to bring Christianity to Ireland, it is Saint Patrick who supposedly encountered the Druids at Tara and abolished their pagan rites. The story holds that he converted their warrior chiefs and princes, baptizing them and thousands of their subjects in the “Holy Wells” that still bear his name. Today many catholic places of worship all around the world are named after Saint Patrick, including famous cathedrals in Dublin and New York City. If properly celebrated as a religious holiday, observers should attend mass on March 17th and offer prayers for missionaries who follow in St. Patrick’s footsteps worldwide. The shamrock is a traditional symbol of St. Patrick’s Day, and has become associated with all things Irish. It was St. Patrick who made the shamrock famous when he used the three- leafed clover in his sermons to explain the Holy Trinity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day. When the first St. Patrick’s Day celebration occurred in the United States in Boston in 1737, the Irish men and women in attendance donned shamrocks on their clothing as a symbol of their Irish heritage. Fast forward many years, and today St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated world-wide with parades, traditional Irish music and dance, and Irish food and drink. So the next time you drink a green beer or shamrock shake, raise your glass to St. Patrick for giving us a reason to celebrate! Until then, |
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