Saint Patrick’s Day is one of those celebrations that simply make the world a happier place. It’s cheery, jolly, and just plain old fun. But, like much any other holiday, its history holds many little-known facts that might just turn our perceptions on their head.
Today, Saint Patrick’s is considered a day to celebrate all things Irish: traditions, spirit, history, culture. After centuries of repeated festivity, the holiday has transformed from a religious observance to a secular celebration, which has helped popularize it for modern audiences. Still, the roots of Saint Patrick’s Day remain latched on to the festivity’s name.
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So, who was this revered saint whose name has become associated with everything Irish?
A foreign saint
Ironically, Saint Patrick, or Patricius, was not actually Irish. He was born in Roman Britain and wasn’t even an active believer initially, according to his Confession (a sort of autobiography and the single most important source of information about his life). At the age of 16, however, everything changed. On what otherwise seemed like an ordinary day, Patrick was kidnapped by a group of Irish pirates who took him to Ireland as a slave. He was held captive for 6 years.
His time in captivity was key to his spiritual development and conversion to the Catholic faith. He writes that during this period, he looked to the solace of prayer, which offered him comfort and strengthen his belief in God. Six years after he was first taken, Patrick heard a voice telling him that the time was there to leave for home and that a ship was ready for him. From that moment on, Patrick claims, God assisted on every step of his life. Fleeing from his master, Patrick found a ship on the shore and convinced the captain to take him back to Britain. When the ship made land, he then traveled the wilderness for a month, and food only was provided when he would pray for it.
After making his way back home, now in his twenties, Patrick devoted his life to the study of Christianity. He studied in Europe, mostly in Auxerre, Burgundy. And some years went by, unremarkably, before he got a rather peculiar vision.
“I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: “The Voice of the Irish”. As I began the letter, I imagined at that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.”
As he thought the Irish were calling him back to “save them,” he set out on a personal mission to convert the whole of Ireland to Christianity, and with the Pope’s blessing, he arrived on the island shortly after. There, he is said to have baptized thousands of people, ordained many priests, converted many women and princes, and founded monasteries and churches all throughout the land. But his mission was not without difficulties. As a foreigner in a hostile land, lacking official protections under Ireland’s rule of law, he was at one time robbed of all he owned, and at another captured yet again for 60 days.
The legends that shroud the man
As a remote historical figure, the time has conceived many legends surrounding Saint Patrick, some of which are plausible, though unconfirmed, while others are probably parables or fictional fancies. It has been said that Patrick used a shamrock, Ireland’s famous three-leafed plant, to illustrate the concept of the Holy Trinity (according to which a single God is three different persons) in order to make the doctrine more accessible to the Irish. The shamrock has since become a national symbol in Ireland.
Ireland also is notorious for its lack of snakes, and it is said Patrick drove them all away from the island, chasing them into the sea after they attacked him. On another occasion, he is said to have stuck his walking staff to the land before evangelizing a population. In Aspatria, or “ash of Patrick,” the message of the Christian doctrine took so long to be adopted by the people that Patrick’s staff grew roots before he was ready to leave.
Obviously, we shouldn’t take these legends at face value. Snakes likely never inhabited post-glacial Ireland, and staffs simply don’t grow roots by simply standing still. Nevertheless, all the legends surrounding Patrick have become part of Ireland’s folklore, and from them, we get much of the spirit of the St. Patrick’s Day we know and love.
Modern-day St. Patrick’s
It’s not hard to see why Patrick became such a prominent figure in Catholic Ireland. Even though he wasn’t Irish, Patrick remains the most important figure in Catholicism for the nation. The Church proclaimed the day of the death of St. Patrick, March 17, a holiday to commemorate across Christendom, one of particular importance to Ireland specifically.
Funnily enough, green fell out of fashion by the early 1700s and got replaced by blue, which became the unlikely color associated with the festivity. Years later, Irish Protestants rebelled against the English and reclaimed the green, so associated with the shamrock, as the national color.
However, the modern, secular celebration of St. Patrick’s Day didn’t take its current form until the mid-18th century, at the heart of the American Colonies. Much like Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day became an immigrant festivity to celebrate Irish culture in a far-away land and was only later popularized in Dublin and other cities. The first St. Patrick’s Day Parade took place in Boston in 1737, and no such parade was held in Ireland until the 1930s. Only as of the 20th century is St. Patrick’s an official national holiday for the Irish.
Far from its religious roots, St. Patrick’s Day today is a symbolic commemoration not of a non-Irish patron, but of a properly Irish tradition and people, full of green beer, Celtic music, and a hell of a good time.
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