MARCH 17th: IRISH CHRISTIANS? WHAT'S ST. PATRICK'S DAY ALL ABOUT?

Colour me green and teach me how to count to potato – we’re a week out from St. Patrick’s Day and I’m sitting here and thinking; “what have the Irish contributed to the global community of late?”

… Still thinking…

… Nothing’s coming to mind…

Anyway, what is this St. Patrick’s bollarchy all about and why do we celebrate it?

Well, it seems that sometime about 1600 years ago this guy called St. Patrick arrived in Ireland bringing Christianity with him. Now can you imagine that? Irish Christians? That’s like free-thinking Socialists or Islamic Women’s Rights Activists – it just doesn’t sound right does it? And there are a number of issues about this as far as I can see.

Firstly, how much of a coincidence is it that this guy happened to have an Irish name? According to historic recollections (uploaded from the ever-reliable Wikipedia) this guy was born across the water in England – to a wealthy Romano-British family. So how come we’re not celebrating St. Augustus Antonio Day or St. Arthur Daley Day? How did his parents know that they had to call him ‘Patrick’?

Secondly; not only did St. Patrick bring Christianity to Ireland, but apparently he also managed to drive all of the snakes out of the country too. Now come on… we both know that’s all a wee bit of a fib don’t we? Like, everyone knows that it was the English who actually drove all the snakes out of Ireland. They did it during the late nineteenth century by transporting them all to the Convict Colonies in Australia.

Thirdly (or, with an Irish accent; “Tirdly”), is the very concept of celebrating the arrival of Christianity to Ireland. I mean, I can’t tell who’d be worse off; the Christians or the Irish. Like Jesus O’Christ, it’s Holy Communion with a baked potato and a Pint of Guinness. And apparently (according to Wikipedia again) St. Patrick used the three leaved Shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to his Pagan Irish congregation. So what was that like? “Here’s the Father, here’s the Son and here’s the God damned Holy Leprechaun!!!”

And you can just imagine some of those early Pagan Irishmen gathering at their local taverns, downing a few Ales and telling each other Christian jokes. Like:

“Did you hear the one about the Christian guy who rescued a young woman from a Roman executioner and took her home and made mad passionate love to her?”

“No, was she beautiful?”

“Don’t know… he never found her head.”

Now here’s the thing; we all know that according to that other great and reliable information source Mel Gibson, at exactly the same time that St. Patrick was arriving in Ireland to begin his ministry (give or take about a thousand years) the Irish were heading the other way in droves to help the Scots fight off the English at Bannockburn. As Mel’s depiction of Wallace stated in his heavy accented Scottish drawl; “Ye coon nawt tek ma frdeedom!”

So it’s kind of hard imagining the early Irish being so accommodating of St. Patrick and his Christian ideals. I mean, they must have viewed him in the same way that we view those annoying Jehovah’s Witnesses today;

“For God’s sake, I’m bloody hung-over and was trying to have a sleep in!”

Yes, that sounds as though it could have been as common an expression in a fifth century Ireland as it is on a Saturday morning in suburbia today.

So there you have it, three good reasons why it makes no sense for the Irish (or any of us for that manner) to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. But despite that, on March 17^th we’re all going to go out together, dress in vulgar green, drink bucket loads of Guinness (even though no-one other than the Irish actually likes the stuff), eat a potato, talk in a silly accent, and kiss and hug a bunch of perfect strangers while reminiscing about the plight of Irish oppression…

… Yes, it all sounds very Irish-Christian to me…

That’s what I think… and usually I’m right.