March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day
A Traditional and Widely Celebrated Irish Holiday
Each year, millions of people worldwide celebrate this holiday on March 17th,the day of St. Patrick’s death. The holiday has come to mean different things to different people. For some, it is a holy day.For others, it is a day to celebrate their cultural heritage, national identity and all things Irish. A time honored custom on St. Patrick’s day is to dress, eat and drink anything green! It is widely held in the US that because gallons upon gallons of green paint was dumped into the river that runs through the city of Chicago in the past to honor this holiday, the Chicago River is now permanently green.
The enduring legacy of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is the conversion of the Irish from pagan religions to the belief of one God–Christianity. Today, 93 percent of the population in the Republic of Ireland is Catholic. Although Saint Patrick has come to be associated inextricably with Ireland, he was not Irish by birth Born in Wales to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century, his given name was Maewyn Succat (he adopted Patrick or Patricius upon becoming a priest). He was brought to Ireland by Irish raiders at the age of sixteen and subsequently spent six years in captivity tending flocks of sheep in solitude. It was during these years of solitary confinement that Patrick became a devout Christian and started having visions of God.
Guided by these visions, he eventually escaped from Ireland to Britain only to return years later as a missionary priest. The Irish culture centers around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. The success of St. Patrick’s efforts to convert the Irish lies in the fact that rather than attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs, he incorporated traditional ritual into his teachings of Christianity. For example, in order to make the veneration of the Christian cross seem more natural to the Irish, he superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross(pictured on the right)
Legends of the Shamrock
The Shamrock, at one time called the “Seamroy”, is a trifoliate plant that has become the national emblem of Ireland (see the small clover symbol on this page). Prior to the Christian era in Ireland, it was regarded as a sacred plant that symbolizes the rebirth of Spring. The well known legend of the Shamrock is that St. Patrick once plucked a leaf of it for use in illustrating the doctrine of the trinity (i.e., the Father, the Son and the Holy Sprit). The legend of the shamrock is also connected with that of the banishment of the serpent tribe from Ireland by a tradition that snakes are never seen on trefoil and that it is a remedy against the stings of snakes and scorpions. The trefoil in Arabia is called shamrakh and was sacred in Iran as an emblem of the Persian triads. The trefoil being a sacred plant among the Druids of Ireland, and three being a mystical number in the Celtic religion as well as all others, it is probable that St. Patrick must have been aware of the significance of his illustration.
St. Patrick is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D. In accordance with religious traditions, a feast is held not on his birthday but on the day of St. Patrick’s death, March 17th. Historically, wearing the shamrock and things green has become a powerful symbol for asserting the Irish national and cultural identity.
To learn more about the history and the legends of St. Patrick’s Day, Click Here
Information presented here is compiled from various Web resources.