Europe at Present [Spring 2003]

St. Patrick’s Day – March 17. (Mateusz Homa)

As far as the origin of the day is concerned, it has its roots in the life of one of the most widely recognised figures in Christianity – St. Patrick. He is believed to have been born in Roman Britain, most likely Wales, near the end of the fourth century. Although his father was a Christian deacon, there is no evidence that young Patrick was a particularly pious and religious person. At the age of sixteen, he was abducted by a group of Irish marauders that raided his family’s estate. He was subsequently transported to Ireland and kept in captivity for the following six years, during which he worked as a shepherd and, as a result of his solitude, he turned to his religion and became a devout Christian. It was also then that he envisaged for the first time the prospect of converting the Irish to Christianity.³⁵⁴ It is said that after this period he received in a dream a command urging him to escape and leave the island. In order to do so, St. Patrick undertook a 200 miles’ journey on foot from County Mayo (where he was apparently held) to the Irish coast. Afterwards he travelled to England and France, where he settled for twenty years in Marmoutier Abbey as a monk and experienced his second revelation prompting him to return to Ireland as a missionary. On completing his studies at in the Abbey in 432, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Celestine, who bequeathed on him the honour of Bishop and St. Patrick left for Ireland soon after.³⁵⁵

He arrived in Ireland along with 24 of his followers in the winter of 432 and proceeded to acquaint the Irish with Christianity. He assumed that the best solution was to combine and interleave native beliefs with his lessons rather than to try to eradicate them, therefore he set about using bonfires, hitherto employed to honour pagan gods, to celebrate Easter, and brought together the sun, a powerful Irish symbol, and the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross. All those measures were aimed at making the new religion more attainable to inhabitants of Ireland. There is also an oft-quoted example of making ingenious use of the shamrock (Irish Gaelic for the three-leafed clover) to explain a theological dispute. St. Patrick attempted at confronting and converting one of the most powerful rulers in Ireland, King of Laoghaire. While being in the presence of the king, he plucked a three-leafed shamrock and explained showing the plant, how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit could exist as three separate parts of the same entity. More presently, it is often dipped in whisky and thrown over the left shoulder to distract any potential misfortunes. The ritual is referred to as “The Drowning of the Shamrock”. The lore has it besides that St. Patrick delivered a sermon on a hill that drove all snakes away from the island, which, since no snakes were ever indigenous to Ireland, symbolises conversion of the pagans. He is believed to have died between 463 and 493 on March 17 and this day has been commemorated ever since.³⁵⁶

For years, the day was regarded as a solely religious holiday, especially as it falls during Christian Lent. The Irish would attend church services in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. St. Patrick’s Day enjoyed a suspension of Lenten obligations and people were allowed to dance, drink and feast – including the traditional bacon and cabbage. It is significant that it was in New York City that the very first parade took place on March 17. In 1762 a group of Irish soldiers serving in the British army marched through the city to demonstrate attachment to their roots.³⁵⁷ In the course of the following years patriotic feelings of the Irish thrived, only to be massively superseded by that of fellow compatriots arriving in the US after 1845 due to the Great Potato Famine in their homeland. Outnumbered by the Protestant majority, undereducated, despised for religious beliefs and bizarre accent, the immigrants were ostracised from the society and soon realised the dire need to make their presence felt. Consequently they began to exploit their political power stemming from relatively large numbers as an important swing vote. Parades on St. Patrick’s Day were used as a means of showing their strength and a must-go for every political candidate, which was most accurately reflected in President Truman’s appearance in 1948.³⁵⁸

Oddly enough, until the 1970s pubs in Ireland were shut on this day, which was naturally a consequence of its being a religious occasion. As the event became distinctively secular in terms of celebration, new customs were introduced. Those include brewing specially for this holiday the famous “green beer” and enjoying it during all-night sit-ins in local pubs. It was in fact the credit of the Irish communities spread all around the globe that St. Patrick’s day, held already in distinctively remote parts of the world such as Japan, Russia and Singapore, was reinvented in Ireland in the form of the aforementioned festival. Multi-day celebrations include parades, concerts, outdoor theatre performances and fireworks shows.

A part and parcel of the Dublin festival is the Skyfest, which is a breathtaking fireworks experience held on the city’s quays. Also particularly worth mentioning are the banks of the River Liffey, where thousands of individual performers, street theatres etc. gather to celebrate during the festival’s period. On the days preceding March 17, a series of concerts under the title “The Music Village” gives testimony of traditional and contemporary Irish music. However the most spectacular part is obviously the parade on the very day, which lures the Irish and tourists with a vast range of pageants and tremendous marching bands. The event culminates in “Ceili Mor”, that is a wild party and, at the same time, the largest outdoor occasion of Irish dances that continues into the night.³⁵⁹