The Origin of St. Patrick's Day

Although St. Patrick's Day is over I still wanted to write this article. I am part Irish and I have always wondered how the holiday began. Of course I am curious about how all holidays begin but right now I will just talk about St. Patrick's Day.

As we all know St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on the 17th of March. The reason for this is because this is the day St. Patrick died. Of course there are some that believe he died on March 8th or 9th so what they did was added the 8th and 9th together to get the 17th. This is something I find very interesting because either day he died when you add the two together you still get 17 and that is pretty cool.

Although it can't be agreed about where and when St. Patrick died his jawbone was preserved and requested for such times as child birth, epileptic fits and as a preservative against the "evil eye."

Most people agree that St. Patrick's real name was Maewyn Succat and they say he was kidnapped at age 16 and sold into slavery, which is what brought him closer to God. There are some who say he was born in Wales in 385 AD, yet there are others who say he was born in Britain in 387 AD. I don't think anyone can really know for sure where and when he was really born just like they can't know what day he really died. All we know is we celebrate this Irish holiday on the 17th of March.

St. Patrick escaped slavery after six years and became a priest in France and then the second Bishop to Ireland. For 30 years he converted Pagans to Christianity and established schools, churches and monasteries across the country.

It is said that St. Patrick used a shamrock as a metaphor for the trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) showing how three separate units could be part of the same body. People started wearing shamrocks to his sermons on their clothes. The reason for green being the color used for St. Patrick's Day is because it represents Shamrocks, Spring and Ireland.

What I find fascinating is while I was doing the research on St. Patrick's Day, I found out that there are no snakes in Ireland. They say that St. Patrick is the one who drove the snakes out of Ireland but some think there never were any snakes because the Island was separated from the rest of the continent after the Ice Age. But due to most believing that St. Patrick was responsible for driving the snakes away this is one reason he was worshiped. Driving the snakes from Ireland was probably symbolic of putting an end to the Pagan practices.

St. Patrick's Day is a traditional day of offering prayers to missionaries worldwide. The Irish are descendants of the ancient Celts but the Vikings contributed to the nature of the people also. It is believed that as the Irish spread out through the world they took their history and celebrations with them. In Ireland all businesses, except for the restaurants and pubs, close down for St. Patrick's Day because most of them attend Mass before the big celebrations begin. Most of the Irish are either Catholic or Protestant.

In American cities where there is a large population of Irish there are parades and big celebrations with food and drink and lots of stuff for the children during St. Patrick's Day. Some even go as far as to dye the rivers and streams green. I think this is really cool and it just shows how proud the Irish are of their heritage.

St. Patrick chose the Shamrock (A plant whose leaves are divided into three leaflets) as a symbol for the Holy Trinity for the Church because of its three leaflets bound by a common stalk. Wood Sorrel is an example of a common Shamrock and is shipped from Ireland to other countries on St. Patrick's Day.

The world famous Blarney Stone sits on a rock on the top story of the Blarney Castle which was erected in 1446, although the site that is most visited today is the third one that was built. Visitors actually kiss the Stone and they say it is a very hard thing to do. They have to sit with their back to the stone while a local guide or friend either sits on their feet or firmly holds them down while the person doing this leans down into the darkness between the 18 foot-thick walls and, holding on to the iron rails, they lower themselves until their head is even with the stone.

There are lots of local legends about the Stone and one talks about an old woman who was saved from drowning by a King and she rewards him by a spell that if he kisses the Stone he will gain a new kind of speech that will win all to him.

So this is how St. Patrick's Day was started and how it works. Quite interesting to find out about this with it being part of my heritage as well. I'm not full Irish but my mothers father was half Irish so of course that makes it part of my heritage as well and I'm very proud of it. I want to dye the rivers and streams around me green too!