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After the death of Jesus Christ in 33 AD,
His followers continued to preach his message. The Christian
faith continued to spread gradually from country to country.
In 431, Pope Celestine sent a bishop called Palladius to
visit the Christians in Ireland. In the following year 432
AD the most famous Irish missionary arrived. We know him
as Saint Patrick but Patrick was not his real name, he is
believed to have originally had the name of Maewyn Succat. |
| Maewyn Succat had already been in Ireland.
In fact he had arrived there after being captured by pirates
and sold into slavery. While there he was set to work as
a shepherd on the rugged mountain tops of rural Ireland,
surviving on the same slop the sheep ate and drinking water
from the same trough, if the legends are to be believed. |
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After a while on such a diet St. Patrick started
experiencing strange religious visions. According to legend,
he built his strength up and escaped on a ship that would
bring him to France. After arriving in France, where he
found religion, he began to study and eventually became
a priest, and later a bishop. He became a bishop and decided
it was his duty in life to save us Irish pagans from eternal
damnation. Depending on his charm and a three leaf shamrock,
St. Patrick began the conversion of pagan Ireland to the
Christian tradition. |
| As a a sign of his God's strength he is recorded
as banishing snakes from the island of Ireland. This last
bit has been vigorously debated by various historians and
pub-goers over the centuries but the fact remains that snakes
are a pagan symbol and St. Patrick probably used their banishment
in a metaphorical sense. |
| As he was travelling around the country preaching
he began to use the Shamrock as a symbolic aid to help him
explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Shamrock is
made up of three equal-sized leaves in the same way the
Trinity represents the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And it is because of this that the shamrock became the unofficial
national emblem of the country (the Harp being the official
one). |
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| And so ends the story of St. Patrick, patron
Saint of Éire and enemy of snakes. St. Patrick's day happens
on 17th March of every year and is celebrated in style all
over the world, particularly in America, where the Diaspora
show the rest of the nation how it's really done. |
Enjoy
your St. Patty's Day!
May the luck of the Irish be with you.
graphics
on this page by Courtemanche
story
courtesy of St.
Patrick on Parade
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