Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day and with it will come a lot of customs of the day.
A lot of people will participate in the “wearing of the green,” replete with fake shamrocks, green Bowler hats and perhaps 40 shades of green T-shirts.
And of course, there will be those who will take the opportunity to get in the spirit of the day by partaking of the “spirits” of the day.
Was there really someone like St. Patrick and was he even Irish? The answer to that is yes and also no.
According to the most reliable sources, St. Patrick was born Maewyn Succat in the early 5th Century to Roman parents. His parents were in the British Isles working for the Roman occupiers shortly before the Roman Empire began to collapse. Succat was also known by his Latin name, Patricius, which later led tohis being called Patrick.
It seems when Patrick was 16, Irish raiders came into the area he was living and kidnapped the young man, selling him to an Irish land owner. He lived as aslave for six years before he escaped, catching a ship for Gaul, a Roman province that would later become France. After reaching Gaul, he decided to enter the service of the Roman church and became a priest under the tutelage of the legendary St. Germain.
After having a dream of returning to Ireland as a missionary, he was sent there by the church as his six years of being a slave there gave him a great knowledge of Gaelic, the Irish language. The Roman church had not made much headway in Ireland as they were opposed by the powerful Druid clans, an especially nasty bunch of pagans.
The story goes that when Patrick arrived in Ireland, he was going to seek out his old slave master to repay him the money his masterlost when he fled to France. The master, fearing retribution, committed suicide before he got there. Legend has it that the Druids cast many spells on Patrick and sought to have him killed.
Their failure and Patrick’s kindness broke the hold the Druids held over the island for centuries.
Patrick’s generosity and amiable personality carried the day, and the Irish mainland is heavily Catholic today as a result of his labors.
Patrick was said to have driven all the snakes out of Ireland but no evidence exists that any snake-like animal ever lived on the island. There is speculation, however, that the “snakes” he drove out were the human variety in the form of Druid priests.
Oddly enough, St.
Patrick’s Day has been celebrated in the U.S. long before it ever was in Ireland. March 17 is the date of Patrick’s death in 493 A.D., and the day began to be commemorated well over 1,000 years ago. The first St. Pat’s Day parade happened in Canada in 1824, with the first celebration happening in Boston in 1737. New York City started their parade in 1762 and it has become a huge affair.
Chicago annually dyes the Chicago River green every year for the day, and it is said that more alcoholic beverage is consumed on this date than on any other.
Ireland itself did not celebrate St. Patrick’s Day until the 1990s. Until then, it was a day devoted to solemnity and introspection. With the day long celebrated all over the world, the Irish decided to market it to boost tourism, a major source of income for the island nation.
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The author of this story was Sean MacAoidh, which is the Gaelic spelling for John McGee. The McGee family was a part of the McDonald clan of northern Ireland. John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Opinion, Pages 4 on 03/16/2011