Maybe “hate” is too strong a word to describe my feelings for and about St. Patrick’s Day. I suppose I feel about it much as I feel about the Twelfth of July in Norneverland . It’s a day that is fine as a holiday, but it has no other real frisson to it . Saint Patrick has no more relevance to me than the sainted and sanctified King William of Orange . At a guess, I ‘d say the known and generally accepted personae of both men are mythological constructs anyway . They are both steeped in storytelling , legend and fable that has little to do with the actual history of past events and more to do with the manipulations of Church,State and the joy of a good yarn.
St Patrick’s Day in Norneverland has become quite a partisan festival, known to be “owned” by one section of the community . Many would wish it to be otherwise but that is not the reality. They are lighting up Stormont in greenery this year for the big day , but they are balancing that with dayglo-orange lighting for the annual Orangefest in July. Checks and balances for the natives, you see. It is celebrated mostly by Nationalist or Roman Catholic sections of the population, almost entirely. This may not be the case further afield across the world where distance and time has made it a wholly Irish celebration. “Irishness” is still in dispute in Norneverland. In far -flung parts of the world , everyone wants to claim their Irishness on this sole day, whether they have a drop of Irish blood in them or not; they all want a piece of that green craic.
Saints figure very highly in Roman Catholic mythology. Saint Patrick is one of these glowing creations whose providence stretches back into the wooly past before “proper” recorded history really began , when the pagan natives of Ireland were hoarding cattle as symbols of power , living in glorified transient tent -homes not unlike the Native Americans, and sleeping and living in huge and heavy cloaks replete with eco-systems of their own.There has been a whole pantheon of these glorified dead -beings , sanctified and rhapsodic, sitting looking down from some heavenly plane . They have been created and exist mostly in the imaginations of those who believe in such things and they have been created to sate that earthly need. To put it frankly, Popes create these glorious and ecstatic creatures.They come from nowhere else.The sainted “Patrick” has been made for Irishmen and women to enjoy and lay claim to.His Christian beliefs were made believable to the Irish pagans by introducing the idea of the trinity which , with their multiplicity of Celtic gods , made some sense to the Irish.Legend has it that he used the shamrock to do help explain this, which in retrospect was an excellent marketing tool and symbol, every bit as potent as the Coca Cola one.. Some say he came as a man from Cumbria in Roman Britain but not one person really knows the real truth of his origin story. His origin was then tacked on or around the old pagan Spring festival of the goddess Ēostre {Easter}…the Spring time of the earth’s renewal.When the church eventually got their calenar sorted , Patrick’s day was moved to it’s present day of the 17th of March…A break in the fasting of Lent, neatly avoiding the Eastertime renewal which also now encompassed the death and resurrection of the Christ.
None of this matters now that that he is a well-entrenched Saint with a Big Hat, a green and gold tunic and a twisty hooked golden crook , for dragging back the odd skipping sheep which strays from the flock.
The other thing about St.Patrick’s Day is that because of these churchy manipulations and the gradual slippage of the four seasons, it is now held at the wrong time of the year .It’s almost guaranteed to be one of the worst days of the year weatherwise. I can recall rushing to the car with cold bedraggled children in tow, dodging gales and torrents of icy downpour on the glorious day. As the years peel by, the actual “saintly” religious part of the equation becomes more tenuous and the celebratory function becomes more prominent and the particular day has become to gradually end in alcoholic chaos.
Alcohol is the notional and national drug of Saint Patrick now. St Patrick’s Day without the drowning of the symbolic shamrock in alcohol would be a very staid and dry affair, indeed. This break in the supposed fasting of Lent has allowed itself to all-out partying. The man himself may never have enjoyed the sting in the throat of a well- quaffed ale but he is now celebrated with the lowering of many pints of dark stout and drams of Irish Whiskey across the world.Maybe that was to keep the cold at bay..but the Christian Patrick will never fully convert the Irish -pagan sensiblity and the love of a good party and a hearty raucous carouse. It almost goes against the grain to do so.
Personally , I’m all for any excuse for a celebratory party , but why oh why does it have to be in March? Now a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the warmth and sun of August…that might be something to party about!!
St Patrick was never canonised by the Roman Catholic Church. None of the early Irish saints were. Their saintly titles are purely honorary.
The earliest Roman canonisation was of St Malachy who lived in the 11th century.
This was because the early Irish church was not Roman, but Celtic. Rome did not get a proper control of the the place until sometime after the Normans invaded.Even then they never fancied many Irish as saints and only canonised 4 in total, compared to hundreds in Italy.
So we can safely say he was not a Protestant then!!
Cushy, …I know most of these saints are basically made -up anyway…Me being an unbeliever in any case , that would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it? ..i’ll not get into the semantics of whether or not they were really “real” saints because they were “canonised”…for that very reason…and not just a bunch of blokes like you or I …talking off the top of their heads and believing all sorts of stuff.
Yes , the early Irish church was not Roman…the romans never getting this far… and the Irish already had all sorts of gods -a -plenty and enough magics and superstitions to be getting on with with their nature paganism… before they would readily take to yet another idea that set out to ruin their traditional ways of life..The Romans had a great many gods too before Christianity took hold with them These ideas didn’t suddenly stick. These religious notions were more organic and bedded in gradually. In any case ,Ireland would have been regarded as a very strange, dark -wooded damp place at the edge of the known world…with its own “barbaric” way of thinking…..it still is if you think about it. Even the concept of owning property or the status of a permanent . immovable home would have been seen a step too structured and too far, for the native Irish back then.
The early Irish Church was part of the Catholic Church universal and was never in schsim with Rome and so technically has always been in communion with the Holy See. There was even a missionary bishop sent to Ireland before Patrick called Palladius by Pope Celestine in 431 A.D.and he founded a number of churches in the Leinster area. Historians who are experts in the Irish Church almost unanimously agree that there was no recognizable structure called the “Celtic Church” and a lot of mythology and romantic distortion surround this idea. In fact it seems to first date from the 16th and 17th centuries when protestant clerics first spoke of a supposedly independent Irish to downplay the continuity of the links between Rome and the Irish Church from the earliest days.
Saint Patrick`s Day in the middle of summer would make more sense, thinking about it. As a child I always thought Saint Patrick looked like a Celtic version of Saint Joseph, big white beard, friendly sort of chap. It is weird how we really know very little about him although he did exist and he was a Christian, he brought the Faith to Ireland so as a Church going Catholic I say good. In the old days Unionist politicians either ignored his feast day or were actively hostile to it, now they go to America to join the craic. I actually saw footage of Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness wearing green ties. I never thought I would ever live to see that. Getting rid of our snakes was a doddle compared to getting Peter to wear any greenery.
By the way Harry, you DID get permission from the photographer who took that photo of Saint Patrick, didn`t you?
Don’t go there AJ …or I’ll have to whip out the paintbrush and knock out a quick version of my own .!!!!! If anyone objects , I’ll have to start painting an illustration for every bloody story I write as well …there’d be a whole lot less tall tales then , old son!
St Patrick, Christianity and Silvano Tomasi’s urban myth
Martin Luther King said, “”Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”
Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s envoy at the United Nations in contrast, advocates the use of military force against ISIS in the Middle East.
“What’s needed is a coordinated and well-thought-out coalition to do everything possible to achieve a political settlement without violence, but if that’s not possible, then the use of force will be necessary.”
The use of force is in contrast to some of the following statements:
“Put up thy sword…” (John 18:11)
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do…” (Luke 23.34)
“Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him… seven times?”
“I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven…” (Matthew 18:22)
During his visit to Ireland in1979, Pope John Paul II said a number of things,
“For this reason it was fitting for me to come here before going to America, where I hope to address the United Nations Organisation on these same problems of peace and war, justice and human rights…I proclaim… that violence is evil, that violence is unacceptable as a solution to problems, that violence is unworthy of man. Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings…Now I wish to speak to all men and women engaged in violence. I appeal to you in language of passionate pleading. On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace.”
According to Silvano Tomasi it would appear that 490 and you are out. Food for thought as Easter beckons.
Huh?
I have never attended st Patricks day celebrations in my life.
Have you now or have you ever worn green, though? Including underwear? Come clean, Michael…
I once owned a pair of green wellingtons but got rid of them when toffs started to wear them.Our colours were always worn on easter Sunday.We let the Hibs keep St Patricks day!
“….celebrating some Brit coming to gaelic Ireland and spreading Christianity, the man brought nothing but da seeds of misery da C…” Remember hearing that from some wag from Dublin many years ago and thinking, there’s a man who isn’t disposed to the Board Failte PR campaign, and has enough of the Black Stuff in him to open his lungs full throttle to the tourists in Temple Bar in the temporary? surety of his sardonic conviction,- V refreshing….Mischief challenges many narrow parameters and perimeters both
It is funny , isn’t it Francis, that everyone assumes that Patrick was a positive thing for Ireland or that Christianity was a positive development for the Celtic Irish, but when you think of it as foreign philosophy coming into a land of well-entrenched customs and gradually destroying them, why is it all regarded as something other than a bad thing.
What is the real difference in the Jesus sacrifice on the cross to his God the Father.. and the sacrifices the Celts made{unearthed as “Bog People” to their water gods and the like?
In Celtic Ireland , for example the people had local gods for every occasion . Apparently they had somewhere around 300 plus of these deities .You might call it hedging your bets or not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Even before Patrick’s legendary shamrock, the Irish worshipped triple deities …usually sisters, so they were no strangers to this triple or “triune” way of thinking . Easy meat for a Patrick and the three -leafed shamrock and the idea of “three- gods- for- one” you might say.
There were about thirty-odd of the main gods and goddesses. Apparently “33” was seen as some kind of a magical number …much like the number “13” is thought of as unlucky. Some of the main gods were characters such as Arawn, Brigid, Cernunnos, Cerridwen, Danu, Herne, Lugh, Morgan, Rhiannon and Taranis.
You could say Patrick was responsible for destroying an entire culture if you looked at it from a different angle….much as empire building in America or Australia destroyed the Native American Indians or Australian Aboriginal ways of life in more recent times.You could say too that the Celtic Paganism is really the truly lost traditional way of life for the Irish.What we are celebrating now is a foreigner coming to our lands and introducing a religious and cultural way of thinking that many still seem to find as alien to their true ancient natures.
The green flag I’ll be carrying tomorrow at a No to WaterMeters @ Austerity float tomorrow, is the Plough and the Stars, the flag of the Citizen Army, the flag of James Connolly and Jim Larkin, the banner of Socialist Republicans.
We wore orange hair bows to school, per our mums demand, which always seem odd…. only now it makes sense. (OK, still odd 🙂
I find the whole Paddy’s Day event a huge embarrassment. It is of course getting more and more American, with all the horrors that that entails. The drunkenness is understandable… didn’t Patrick himself overindulge?… What other explanation can there be for him seeing snakes in Ireland?
May St Christopher and St Philomena forgive you!
Such a pity, Harry, you should choose to use the ‘hate’ word in inverted commas up there in Norneverland.
Down here in the Free Southern Stateen we order things differently on St. Patrick’s Day.
First up, the Dublin parade begins and ends where it ought to – in the virtual Cathedral of St. Patrick himself.
And the top o’ the morning could not have commenced in a more tip top fashion than the sight of the begowned Archhbishop mounting the ornamental pulpit of the ecclesiastical e-edifice to deliver a measured, dignified homily on morality as becomes the daily cult which modestly refers to itself as The Church of (no less) Ireland.
Beforehand a courier from The Unionist Times has thoughtfully delivered copies of the sermon which were duly circulated to the specially invited dignataries in the lap top congregation, amongst whom were numbered Perkie’s inner super soup-taster.
‘This political cabal do not seem to see the difference between Truth and Lies’ intoned the sermon-deliverer and the clued-in congregation immediately took the on-line hint as to which political grouping was under the gavel. The hint lay in the initials of the last three words of the opening sentence: T.a. L.
Which of course is the first syllable of the nickname currently preferred on Liffeyside by the morally superior sermonisers on Mount Morsup for their moral inferiors – the Taliban. It was as if Archdeacon Conor Crozier O’Brien had scripted the sermon.
-The sexual abuse of children is about as visceral as it gets – for most people. But Sinn Fein (for it is they!) have responded to it purely as a political problem – an awkwardness to overcome’.
Archbishop O’Toole (for it is he !) droned on in that Himalayan high-tone of his which has endeared himself so much to all those micro-minded amongst us who prefer to allow Himalayan Him to do our heavy intellectual lifting for us.
-What’s most disturbing about the party’s response to repeated allegations of covering up the abuse of children is that it shows how hard it is to make the party’s collective skin creep’.
This brought a collective and unanimous murmur of approbation from the nodding congregation. Nodding in, not nodding off. Nodding in appreciation of the skin of Sinn Fein dichotomy. Nobody nodding more appreciatively than Perkie’s inner pew-occupying Punjabi.
Even as he, the Union Jackeen, gazed in awe up at the ragged and faded banners of the Regiments of the Raj above, evoking memories of Lucknow, Mahalingapur and Darjeeling. And silently suppressed a commemorative tear of regret and pride for all those Joxers and Whackers who selflessly, in the noble cause of civilising the fuzzy-wuzzies, gave their lives to berri-berri, dysentery and the sneaky scimitar in the back from the whore of Lahore.
Droned on the Morality Wallah:
-Sinn Fein can apparently swallow a lot of noxious stuff before its stomach heaves.
Ah, yes, too true, too true. Loath as Perkie is to curry favour with his betters, but was there ever a greater vindication of Vindaloo and its connection with the Up-chuckies ar La?
Back then, to a contemplation of the Regimental rags (yes ragged but still proud) of the Raj: was it , Perkie wondered, the red diagonal in St. Patrick’s Cross width which was 1/15 of the flag’s height and the narrow white diagonal which is 1/30 of the flag’s height. Or, indeed, vice versa?
As soon as the Sermoniser on Mount Morsup mentioned Sinn Fein one was automatically prompted to look down and scan the script for the k-word signifying the marsupial and sure enough, there it was, in the third paragraph, a mere hop,skip and jump from the opening sentence: kangaroo court.
Which set one to pondering the length of time which has passed between the distinguished Archibishoprics of Dublin’s foremost duo of O’Tooles: Laurence and Fintan. And how in their own distinctive ways the two O’Tooles had driven the reptiles, both spiritual and political out of West Britain.In the manner of their founding father, the East Briton and sheep herding bhoyo, Patrick.
As far as Downunder indeed.Where, the noted cultural historian, Bazza McKenzie, once famously noted: ‘the flamin’ Irish one-eyed trouser snake hisses in our flamin’ Ozzie pits’.
As a parting shot in this slashing attack on the immorality of the Taigue version of Taliban, Archbishop O’Toole pointed Percy at the porcelain in this final bladder-emptying shakedown:
-To believe that Sinn Fein understands the concept of accountability, you have to share its own capacity for blind faith’.
On exiting the spired St. Patrick’s Cathedral an inspired Perkie purchased a copy of The Unionist Times’ (otherwise he would have missed part of the day) to read an account of a Roscommon father’s jailing for the abuse of his daughter.
And sought the political allegiance of the errant father, name of local cumann of which he is a member, that sort of thingy, anything petinent which would have brought him to the rim of domestic depravity. And, oddly, sought in vain.
Nonetheless, he did not allow this slipshoddy lapse of the highest journalistic standard in the paper of r.,but understable for the part of the day that was in it, to deter his buoyant mood in this Green Day of Greenery. In which Mrs. Brown himself was designated to lead the Parade down the main drag of Dublin’s F. City.
All that remained was the toss-up.
To decide which of the Lez Prezzies of the recent past in the Free Southern Stateen would greet Mrs. Brown and her boyz at the door of the Cathedral: The Sundance Bid or Butch Assinine.
What’s not to hate about St. Patirck’s Day on Liffeyside, Harry?
(Re the missing inverted commas and the h-word: use them or loose them, as we say in rugga circlles).
I couldn’t add another full -stop to those eloquent words, Mighty Perk …never mind any more inverted {or otherwise} commas.
Those induced commas, paddycool, a chara, must remain,alas, inverted.
With all this concentration on kangaroos one does not quite know any more whether one is up or down, introverted or extroverted, convex or concave,, a convert or just a plain ordinary decent pervert.
It is like an assisted passage to Van Disorientation Land and as is well known, Disorientation is a very demon.
It is a tactic borrowed from the sanctified sward of the new, approved national sport in the Free Southern Stateen: rugby. The incessant articulation of the k-k-k kangaroo word by the well-padded Team Green of the monolithic media is akin to the slow, patient building of pressure through the phases by the bulked up hulks of the front,middle and back rows with the same common goal in mind: a push over try.
Ugly, indubitably, but effective.
Truth is, Perkie’s innner antipodean, the imperfect one called Joey, has no ambition at all to be a kangaroo.
All he is a …..wannabe Wallaby.
Just like his hero, the legendary captain of the World Cup-winning Wallaby team in 1999, the man known as ‘Nobody’.
Yes, John Seales. This man is perfect.
Nobody is perfect.
Beir roo-a.