ST. PATRICK'S DAY - GLOBAL WEARING OF THE GREEN

by Pam North

It began with the person who later became St. Patrick, the patron
saint of Ireland.  His given name was Maewyn, and he was born to
wealthy parents in Wales about AD 385.  Although his father was a
Christian deacon, it appears that the role was assumed primarily for
tax incentives, and there is no evidence that the family was
particularly religious.

At the age of 16, Maewyn was sold into slavery by a group of Irish
marauders that attacked his father's estate.  He was transported to
Ireland, where he worked as a shepherd, outdoors and away from people,
and his isolation and loneliness led to much introspection.  It was
during his time of captivity that he became devoutly Christian.

He escaped from slavery after six years, walking nearly 200 miles from
County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast,
then traveling on to Britain.  He began religious training, a course
of study that lasted more than fifteen years, and he assumed the
Christian name of Patrick.  After his ordination he was sent, as the
second bishop to Ireland, with a dual mission - to minister to
Christians already living in Ireland and to convert the Irish.

Familiar with Irish language and nature-based culture, Patrick wisely
chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of
Christianity, instead of trying to eradicate native Irish beliefs.  He
superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross
(creating what is now called a Celtic cross) so that veneration of the
symbol would seem more natural to the Irish.  He also used bonfires to
celebrate Easter, as the Irish had long honored their gods with fire.

Patrick found much success winning converts, a fact that upset the
Celtic Druids, who arrested Patrick on several occasions.  Each time,
Patrick managed to escape, however, and he continued his work
throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries, schools and churches.
Christianity did not become the national faith of Ireland in the
thirty years of Patrick's ministry, but he is credited with founding
hundreds of churches and converting thousands of people to his faith
during his extensive travels, and his legacy survives.  Today, 93% of
the Republic of Ireland's population is Catholic.

After his ministry in Ireland, Patrick retired to County Down.  He
died on March 17th in about AD 460, and that day has been commemorated
as St. Patrick's Day ever since.

The Irish culture is centered around a rich tradition of oral legend
and myth, so it is no surprise that much Irish folklore surrounds
St. Patrick's Day, the result of hundreds of years of exaggerated
storytelling.  Some of this lore includes the belief that Patrick
raised people from the dead, and that he gave a hilltop sermon that
drove all the snakes from Ireland.  Since snakes were never native to
Ireland, this incident may have been more of a metaphor for the
conversion of the pagans. One traditional icon of St. Patrick's Day is
the shamrock, which figures into the more more bona fide Irish tale of
how Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity.  He
incorporated it into his sermons to represent how the Father, Son and
Holy Ghost could all exist as separate elements of the same entity.
His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast
day.

St. Patrick's Day was first publicly celebrated in America in Boston
in 1737.  The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place when Irish
soldiers, serving in the English military, marched through New York
City on March 17, 1762.  The music and parade helped the soldiers
connect with their Irish roots, and encouraged Irish patriotism to
flourish.

Up until the mid-nineteenth century, most Irish immigrants in America
were of the Protestant middle-class.  The Great Potato Famine of 1845
forced nearly a million poor and uneducated Catholic Irish to pour
into America to escape starvation.  They became the object of derision
by the American Protestant majority until they finally realized that
their great numbers endowed them with power.  They organized, and
their voting block, known as the "green machine" became important
politically.  The annual St. Patrick's Day parades became a show of
strength for Irish-Americans and a must-attend event for political
candidates.

Today, St. Patrick's day is celebrated by people of all backgrounds 
in the United States, Canada and Australia, and, on a smaller scale, 
in Japan, Singapore and Russia.  Ireland has traditionally viewed
St. Patrick's Day as a religious occasion, and until the 1970s
mandated that pubs would be closed on March 17th.  In 1995, however,
St. Patrick's Day began to be used by the Irish government as an
opportunity to showcase Ireland and to encourage tourism.  Now
Dublin's St. Patrick's Day multi-day celebration is typically attended
by a million people, and features parades, concerts, outdoor theater
productions and fireworks displays.