With all the shamrocks, Guinness and rivers of green, we forget about St Patrick himself. Who was he?
St Patrick’s Day is celebrated by millions of people all around the world, but many of them know next to nothing about the saint they are commemorating. That is a pity because Patrick is not only a very interesting saint but a very interesting man. So let’s just take a brief look at what today is all about.
Unlike some very early saints about whom we know hardly anything – for example, there are at least two candidates who could be St Valentine – Ireland’s patron saint, St Patrick, is well established in history. We know a lot about him, or should do, partly from his own writings, which are still in print today.
The first surprising thing about St Patrick is that he was not Irish. He was a Roman living in Britain, probably in Wales. His parents were named Calpurnius and Conchessa, both Romans, probably well-to-do and Christians, as were most Roman citizens by the time of Patrick’s birth around 385AD. As a child he could have expected a fairly comfortable and uneventful life. But the opposite turned out to be the case.
As a boy of 14 he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and taken to pagan Ireland where he was sold as a slave. In Ireland the new young slave was put to work herding sheep on Slemish Mountain in County Antrim. After six years, when he was about 20, he had a dream in which God told him to journey to the coast where he would be able to leave Ireland. He obeyed the dream and at the coast found some sailors who took him back to Britain where he was reunited with his family.
But he did not remain with them. During his time in Ireland, a country dominated by pagan Druids, Patrick had grown very devout, clinging to his Christian faith. A few years after his return to Britain he had a vision in which the people of Ireland called him to come to them and convert them.
So, Patrick went to Europe, studied for the priesthood, was ordained a bishop and set out for Ireland where he arrived at Slane on 25 March 433. He got a hostile reception from the pagan priests, but he defiantly lit an Easter fire on the Hill of Slane and he destroyed the Druids’ most sacred idol on the Plain of Adoration in County Cavan. Thereafter, he spent the remaining years of his life converting Ireland into a completely Christian country.
St Patrick died at Saul, in County Down, on 17 March – now his feast day – in 461. The traditions relating to him are many and colourful. The fame of the shamrock derives from the fact St Patrick used it, when preaching, to illustrate the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity – three persons in one God: three leaves, one plant. But the shamrock isn’t Ireland’s national symbol: that is the harp. The tradition at the end of the festivities on St Patrick’s Day of “drowning the shamrock” means taking the shamrock from your lapel and putting it into the last drink.
The cult of the shamrock in recent centuries encouraged people to wear green. But St Patrick’s historical colour was actually blue, like the ribbon of the Knights of the Order of St Patrick. Nowadays, however, people celebrating St Patrick’s Day often make a point of wearing green, eating green food and even drinking green beer. In Chicago on St Patrick’s Day the river is dyed green for several hours.
St Patrick might be regarded as the patron saint of pub customers, since legend claims he once caught an innkeeper serving short measures and chastised him severely. Certain popular toasts drunk on St Patrick’s day include: “May the roof above us never fall in, and may we friends beneath it never fall out.”
What did Patrick himself drink? Unfortunately, though he brought Christianity to Ireland, the Irish had to wait another thirteen centuries for the arrival of Guinness. But there was no shortage of beer in Ireland in the time of St Patrick. It was brewed from barley and, less frequently, from wheat. Among the most common artefacts regularly discovered by archaeologists in Ireland are malting kilns, dating back to the beginning of the Christian era, i.e. the time of St Patrick.
The food it washed down in the 5th century was healthy and balanced. The commonest fare was cereals and dairy foods: milk of various kinds, curds, butter and different kinds of cheeses. Porridge was widely eaten and the richer dishes included salmon, trout, eel, as well as pork and other meats. Meals were flavoured with watercress, wild garlic and other plants, eaten raw or put into broth.
By the 20th century a St Patrick’s Day meal was likely to consist of bacon and cabbage. Over the centuries St Patrick’s Day developed more traditions. Apart from its religious observance, the first celebration of St Patrick’s Day took place in America, in Boston, in 1737. The biggest St Patrick’s Day celebration nowadays is in New York: there are six times as many Irish people in America as in Ireland, though Dublin still puts on a pretty good show. Sydney, Australia, is another massive St Patrick’s Day venue.
Probably the most famous legend associated with St Patrick is that he banished all the snakes from Ireland. Irish people telling this story like to hedge their bets by saying: “There have been no snakes in Ireland since the time of St Patrick.” That is quite true; but most scientists strongly suspect there may have been no snakes in Ireland before the time of St Patrick either.
The reason we know so much about St Patrick is that he wrote an autobiography called The Confession, narrating the events of his life and his spiritual development. Few saints are more loved by the people they once ministered to and whether or not St Patrick drove snakes out of Ireland, he ended the power of the Druids, who were accused by the Romans of performing human sacrifices – which had to be good news if you were on the roster for next Solstice.
So, regardless of your nationality, raise your glasses and drink a toast to Ireland’s much-loved patron saint.