Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on March 17, 2010

St. Patrick’s Day (in Irish, Lá Fhéile Pádraig) is honored today with the logo on Google’s home page, as shown above. A day rich in Irish history and religion, few people in America know what St. Patrick’s Day signifies beyond drinking green beer in an Irish pub, the wearing of the green, or city parades with marching leprechauns and the waving of Irish flags. St. Patrick’s Day honors much more than that… Éirinn go brách — Ireland Forever!

From Theo Caldwell, National Post, The selfless life of a saint:

“I am Patrick, a sinner, the most unlearned of men, the lowliest of all the faithful, utterly worthless in the eyes of many.”
— St. Patrick, Confession

The life of Saint Patrick is celebrated the world over on March 17, when everyone is a little bit Irish. Solemnity and sobriety may be in short supply on Patrick’s feast day, but this great man merits serious contemplation.

Born a Roman citizen on the west coast of Scotland around AD 400, Patrick was kidnapped from his home at age 16 by kinsmen of Niall of the Nine Hostages, Ireland’s most powerful ruler, and held as a slave for six years. It was a brutal time, but one for which the Saint would eventually thank God. Only through the misery of bondage, and his miraculous escape, did Patrick find his true calling.

He missed the major portion of his formal schooling and this made him insecure his whole life, causing him to write very little. When he did take up his quill in later years, Patrick apologized profusely for the quality of his prose: “Anyone can see from the style of my writing how little training in the use of words I got.”

What an irony that the Patron Saint of Ireland, a nation of outsized authors, was not, in fact, Irish, and lamented his own lack of skill for the written word. But Patrick was a gifted speaker, able to find the natural tone that resonates with listeners, whether they are learned or not. As scholar Donnchadh O’Flionn opined of Patrick’s oratory, “How his unbookish common sense must have baffled those suave and contriving learned opponents of his!”

And opponents, he certainly had. Both within the Church and without, Patrick was surrounded by those who doubted his credentials, his motives, his character and his message. Despite his lifelong knowledge of Christianity (his father had been a church deacon), Patrick did not appreciate the value of faith until he lost his freedom. After escaping to England on a ship that was transporting dogs, Patrick embarked on a lightning clerical career that saw him elevated to the rank of Bishop. Over the course of years, he had visions and dreams of his former captors in Ireland, calling him back to teach them about Christ. He knew that his mission would be hard and folks would doubt him. Yet Patrick persevered, stating, “I came to the Irish heathens to preach the Good News and to put up with insults from unbelievers.”

[...]

It is often observed that Patrick led the only bloodless revolution in the whole troubled history of Ireland. Author and Irish Bishop Joseph Duffy notes, “The later compilers of saints’ lives, who were by no means given to understatement, tell of only one martyr in his entire missionary career.” The pen may be mightier than the sword, but Patrick used neither. Instead, his simple faith and plain speaking changed the course of his adopted country.

Writers largely ignored Patrick for more than 100 years after his death around 480, but he was rediscovered in the 7th century. It was not until 1681 that we find the first reference to wearing the shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day, and this was the same century wherein “Patrick” became the most common Christian name in Ireland. Like any number of ancient tales, the facts of Patrick’s life are disputable but the larger point remains. To wit, a selfless life is worth living.

Amazing performance by Celtic Woman…

Celtic Woman – Danny Boy

From History.com, St. Patrick’s Day:

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over a thousand years. On St. Patrick’s Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink and feast—on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.

The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Ireland but in the United States. Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City on March 17, 1762. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.

Over the next 35 years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of so-called “Irish Aid” societies like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group would hold annual parades featuring bagpipes (which actually first became popular in the Scottish and British armies) and drums.

St. Patrick's Day in Hoboken, New Jersey, 2009 | Photo credit: Carly Baldwin/Hoboken Now

From The Christian Science Monitor, St. Patrick’s Day 2010: It was about church, not Guinness:

Not so long ago, there was no Guinness beer – and certainly no green beer – in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day.

In fact, all the pubs closed on St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. Families attended church and later went for a walk or worked in the garden.

The holiday was exactly that, says Carmel McCaffrey: a holy day.

“When I was a child in Ireland, the pubs didn’t even open. It was a holy day. We went to church,” the Irish scholar and former Johns Hopkins professor said in a phone interview from Maryland. “We’d usually just meet up with friends and have a meal. There were no drinks.”

That’s not what you’ll hear in Dublin today, as the holiday to remember the British missionary to the Druids switches focus from religion to revelry.

“As long as St. Patrick’s Day has been around, they’ve drunk Guinness,” insists Mark McGovern, a Guinness brewery spokesman said by telephone from Dublin.

The company’s St. James’s Gate Brewery makes 3 million pints of beer a day for domestic and international consumption, and about 10 million glasses of Guinness are consumed daily in 150 countries. “On St. Patrick’s Day, I’m sure it’s more than that,” Mr. McGovern says.

Guinness assurances to the contrary, most Irish sources say that only in the past two decades did St. Patrick’s Day include alcohol in Ireland. And, the bacchanal roots of the holiday were imported from America.

Associated Press: White House Goes Green for St. Patrick’s Day 2010

From Gather.com, Old Irish Blessing For Saint Patrick’s Day 2010:

My favorite old Irish blessing seems like the right way to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day 2010 as I say top of the morning to you! Here is an Irish blessing I have displayed in my home that I want to share with you:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

From Sadhbh Walshe, Guardian.co.uk, St Patrick’s Day: not just for the Irish:

When I moved to New York in the mid-90s and witnessed for the first time how Americans celebrate St Patrick’s Day I was kind of blown away. Growing up in Ireland the day that has become synonymous with Irishness around the world was a low-key event, which involved little more than wearing a bit of shamrock and getting a day off school. In recent years it has become a much bigger deal back home with Mardi Gras style celebrations happening in all the major cities but we still can’t rival the sheer magnitude of the occasion as it is celebrated in America by Irish and non-Irish alike.

At last count there were approximately 36.3 million Americans who can claim Irish ancestry, yet according to a “fun fact” released by the census bureau in 2006, at least 93.3 million Americans planned to wear green on 17 March. This figure would suggest that almost 60 million people in this country with no discernible connection to Ireland celebrate Ireland’s day.

It might simply be the happy coincidence that the anniversary of the death of St Patrick falls around the beginning of Spring, a time when we could all use a party. Or the fact that Americans love to celebrate full stop and do it better than most. As Malachy McCourt, the much loved New Yorker/Limerick man put it to me: “It’s a great credit to Americans that they want to get exuberant at the slightest opportunity.” But when year after year millions of people choose to be, as the saying goes, “Irish for the day”, there must be more to it than an excuse to drink green beer.

The Chicago River, dyed green for St. Patrick's Day

From Bing, St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations Around the U.S. – Chicago:

In 1961, city pollution-control workers began using green dye to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that the dye might offer a unique way to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day. Each year, the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local Union #110 uses 40 pounds of dye to color the Chicago River a perfect green.

From Beer Taste Test, 10 Best St. Patrick’s Day Festivals in the U.S.:

St. Patrick’s Day started out as a religious holiday commemorating the patron saint of Ireland. Today “St. Paddy’s” in America has become a celebration of Irish food, culture, and drink, as well as anything having to do with the color green.

[...]

New York City has been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with a parade since 1762. They expect well over 1 million people to show up. There are over 150,000 marchers alone. Green beer and the sound of bagpipes will be everywhere in the streets of NYC.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Buffalo, New York 2010

Kingston, New York: Shamrock Run & St Patrick’s Day Parade 2010

Categories: History, Holidays and Family, Religious Views, Social and Political Climate
Tags: Celtic Woman, Éirinn go brách, Erin go braugh, Google, Google doodle, Google doodle logo, Google doodles, Google home page, Google homepage, Google logo, Happy St. Patrick's Day, Ireland, Ireland history, Ireland St. Patrick's Day, Irish, Irish blessing, Irish church, Irish history, NY St. Patrick's Day Parade, old Irish blessing, St. Patrick, St. Patrick's Day, St. Patrick's Day 2010, White House, White House goes green, why do we celebrate St. Patrick's Day, world news