Time to Celebrate St. Patrick
SOURCE: https://creativecommons.org
There’ll be parades, dancing, special foods, and a whole lot of green here in the United States, whether you have an Irish heritage or not.
Historically, the day was mostly a religious celebration in Ireland.
You wore your homemade St. Patrick’s Day badge or muddy shamrock you dug and went to Mass to sing Hail Glorious St. Patrick. Believe it or not, the pubs were closed on March 17 until the 1970s.
Nowadays, small local villages have parades and festivals with traditional music, sean nós singing and dancing, and a bit of horse racing. Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick have large parades.
One thing’s sure: you’d never ever hear the day called Patty’s Day or St. Pat’s Day in Ireland. It’s Paddy’s Day or St Patrick’s Day.
Did you know these other facts about the patron saint of Ireland?
He was not Irish but British.
Born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders as a teen. They took him to Ireland to work as a shepherd. He escaped and returned to Britain. He spent the next 15 or so years in a monastery, preparing for his missionary work. Pope Celestine I consecrated St. Patrick as Bishop of the Irish around 431.
He was never canonized by the Roman Catholic church.
During the Church’s first millennium, most saints received their title if they were martyrs or were counted to be extraordinarily holy. St. Patrick was the latter. He converted many from paganism and became known as the Apostle of Ireland and made the patron saint of the isle.
His familiarity with the Irish language and culture made the Irish receptive to his teachings because he took familiar Celtic symbols and Christianized them.
Many legends and symbols are attributed to St. Patrick.
He combined the Irish pagan symbol of the sun with the Christian cross, creating the Celtic cross, the icon of Ireland and Irish faith.
He explained the trinity to the Irish pagans with the shamrock’s three leaves. Though there’s no proof he ever did this, the shamrock metaphor remains strong in Irish Christianity.
Allegedly, when snakes attacked him during a 40-day fast, he chased them to the sea. Ireland doesn’t have snakes, so this is a total legend. More likely, he used snakes as a metaphor for the evil Druids and pagans.
He’s said to have climbed Croagh Patrick, County Mayo, and fasted at the summit for the forty days of Lent. True or not, thousands of pilgrims trek to Croagh Patrick’s top yearly.
I’ve climbed Croagh Patrick, but only to the statue, not the summit.
