Bottoms up - it's Paddy's Day!

St. Patrick - Unraveling the Man from the Myth

Who was St. Patrick? His name is more closely associated with Ireland than even that of Bono, the charismatic front man of the country's most famous rock band, U2. Indeed, an old wives' tale has it that while Christ will judge all nations on judgement day, St. Patrick will be the judge of the Irish. For all that, the man remains an enigma and his life shrouded in mystery.

What we do have is a general idea of his early life, the details of which have come straight from the horse's mouth in his letter, the Confessio (Declaration). The Confessio is one of only two surviving Latin letters written by Patrick and gives a short account of his life and mission. In it, he states that he was born to wealthy parents in Roman Britain (around the beginning of the 5th century A.D.) and that his father was a Christian deacon. At sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish marauders and spent six years enslaved as a shepherd in Ireland. It was this time in captivity that awoke his religious calling, rather than any family influence ( ironically, it has been suggested that his father's vocation had more to do with tax incentives than piety). Lonely and isolated, tending sheep on the mountains under a cruel master, he turned to God for comfort. After six years, he received a vision from God telling him to flee Ireland.

A few years after returning home to Britain, he writes that he experienced a second dream in which the voice of the Irish implored him to return to their shores. He underwent years of religious training and is said to have returned to Ireland as a missionary in 432 A.D. (a date which should be imprinted in the memory of any Irish person worth their salt!).

From this point on, the details of Patrick's life become engulfed in a melting pot of fact and fiction. The most famous of Ireland's three patron saints (the other two are Brigid and Columba) is somewhat of a legendary figure. St. Patrick has been credited with introducing Christianity to Ireland, using the three-leaved shamrock in his teachings of the Christian dogma of the Holy Trinity (three divine beings in one God). Legend also has it that he banished snakes from the island.

So where does the myth end and the man begin? Apart from Patrick's own writings, most of what we know of him comes from biographies written almost two centuries after his death, or from stories passed down the generations through word of mouth. Understandably, then, closer inspection pokes holes in many of the accounts of his achievements.

One influential theory holds that there had in fact been two "Patricks": Patrick and Palladius. T.F. O'Rahilly created uproar in 1942 when he suggested that much of what has traditionally been associated with Patrick in fact relates to Palladius, another Christian missionary of the time. For instance, St. Patrick could not have introduced Christianity to Ireland because Palladius had been preaching there before him. Further shattering the myth, it is claimed that there was already a Christian community in Ireland when Palladius arrived, and that his mission was more concerned with ministering to its members than converting pagans.

Nonetheless, by Patrick's own admission in the Confessio, he "baptized thousands of people". Although it is possible that he used the shamrock in his evangelical teachings, it does not appear in his writings. There is, however, evidence to suggest that Patrick converted the Irish with the help of the symbols and rituals of their prior nature-based pagan religion.

He was, by all accounts, a man of the people and the owner of an unusually winning personality. Rather than alienate the Irish by denouncing their pagan practices, he incorporated some of them into his preaching. In a nod to their sun worship, he superimposed a sun onto the Christian cross - creating what is now called the Celtic cross. Indeed, he even went so far as to hijack the pagan sun festival "Bealtaine" (Byowl-tin-a), when the High King traditionally lit the first fire of spring on Slane hill. In a bold show of defiance that earned him the respect of the people, Patrick lit the fire himself, in honor of the Christian feast of Easter rather than Bealtaine.

Finally, while the absence of snakes in Ireland is held up by many as proof that St. Patrick did indeed banish those unpopular creatures from the shores of the Emerald Isle, the truth is that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes! It seems more likely that this particular legend is metaphorical in nature, referring to the serpent symbolism of the Druids (the pre-Christian 'priests').

So, although many of the life achievements attributed to the saint may in fact be tall tales, perhaps Patrick's greatest accomplishment has been posthumous - the commemoration of his death date brings joy of a distinctly green hue into the lives of people across the world every March 17th.

Symbols of Ireland

The Irish in Japan

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)
Hearn was influential in spreading knowledge of Japanese culture to the English-speaking world in the nineteenth century. He came to Japan late in 1890 and spent his remaining years here, eventually marrying and adopting the Japanese name of Koizumi Yakumo. His best-known works are his collections of Japanese fairy tales and ghost stories (see "Kaidan": Stories and Studies of Strange Things).

Thomas James Waters (1842-1898)
After a catastrophic fire in 1872, the governor of Tokyo commissioned Waters to redesign Ginza, the city's famous shopping district. The sturdy, brick buildings he designed made Ginza a symbol of Japan's rapid modernization and his grid-like street plan remains to this day.

John William Fenton (1828-1890)
In addition to composing the original version of Japan's national anthem, Kimi Ga Yo, Fenton is regarded as the father of brass band music in the country. His legacy lives on, then, in the daily sufferings of countless tuba-wielding high school students.

St. Patrick's Day Around the World

The first ever St. Patrick's Day parade took place not in Ireland but in Boston, USA, in 1737.

Every year, the Chicago River is colored green with forty pounds of vegetable dye in honor of St. Patrick's Day. The tradition dates back to 1961, when sewer workers discovered that the dye they used to detect leaks into the river was the perfect, "Irish" shade.

Boulder, Colorado, is thought to have the shortest St. Patrick's Day parade – stretching only half a city block.

St. Patrick is also the patron saint of Nigeria, and students are typically given the day off on March 17th. Irish missionaries were the principal evangelizers of Nigeria, which is now home to about 20 million Roman Catholics (14% of the population).

In Japan, parades take place in nine different locations across the country, including Tokyo, Kyoto and, in Kyushu, Kumamoto.

Irish Eats

Irish Drinks

Fifteen Things You Didn't Know About Ireland

・Contrary to popular belief, the Irish are not the world's top beer drinkers. Nonetheless, with an annual per capita consumption of 131.1 liters, they are in second position, pipped only by the Czechs who guzzle an astonishing 156.9 liters per person.

・The most popular Irish drink may well be non-alcoholic! The Irish drink more tea per capita than any other nation in the world. Three quarters of the population are tea drinkers, with an average consumption of 4-6 cups per day.

・In contrast to the stereotype, Ireland is not home to the highest percentage of redheads in the world. They are in fact most common in Scotland (13% of the population), followed closely by Ireland at 10%.

・The original Guinness Brewery in Dublin has a 9,000-year lease on its property, at a perpetual rate of 45 Irish pounds per year.

・It is said that the Irish saint Brendan discovered America 1,000 years before Columbus.

・Muhammed Ali's great-grandfather, Abe Grady, was born in Ennis, County Clare and emigrated to Kentucky in the 1860's.

・A traditional Irish hangover cure was to be buried up to the neck in moist river sand.

・The "Oscar" statuette of the Academy Awards was designed by Cedric Gibbons, who was born in Dublin in 1823. One of MGM's top set designers of the 20th century, Mr. Gibbons went on to win a dozen of them himself.

・Bram Stoker was working as a civil servant in Dublin when he wrote Dracula in 1897.

・The original White House in Washington was designed by Kilkenny-born architect James Hoban after he won a competition sponsored by President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in 1792.

・The island of Montserrat is known as "The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean". There is a shamrock carved above the door of the governor's home and many place names and family names on the island are Irish. This is because the island was originally settled in 1633 by Irish Catholics, who came from the nearby island of St. Kitts.

・Gulliver's Travels writer Jonathan Swift is buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.

・Scenes in the 1956 movie Moby Dick that took place in New Bedford, Massachusetts were actually filmed in Youghal, County Cork.

・US President Barack Obama's maternal great, great, great grandfather Fulmuth Kearney came from Moneygall, in County Offaly. Mr. Kearney emigrated to America in 1850.

・It is tradition in the US to eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day. However, the custom is not, in fact, Irish. Corned beef was substituted for the bacon of the traditional Irish dish by Irish American immigrants in the late 1800's . Irish immigrants living in New York City's Lower East Side learned about this cheaper alternative to bacon from their Jewish neighbors.

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