Who was  St. Patrick? Where did he come from?
 

St. Patrick was not actually Irish by birth, but he born to "Roman Over Lords"
occupying "previously Scottish  Territory".
(Our great ancestor Niall certainly can not be blamed for that. ...wink ;o)
Naturally raids were done in an attempt to reclaim
that land for the people. In one of these raids, young teenage Patrick was spared
but captured & some Irish folk took pity on him & paid the shipmen for his life.
He was taken to be a shepherd for an Irish Chieftain & thus to pay back this debt
while enjoying a better life than on the ship or wherever else he could have been sold to.

Patrick's life became mostly one of pastoral simplicity
except for occasional lonely nights when the hillsides got chilly
& he missed his parents,
he had few complaints of his life in this beautiful land.
This according to his own account.

Patrick admitted he was well treated as an indentured  shepherd
& formed a love for the Irish.
He later wrote that he felt guilty because he was tempted
to give up the religion of his family
to join the joyful faith of the Irish Folk.
He knew that if he stayed much longer,
he would be charmed into their happy ways.
& never return to the ways of his Roman family.
This inner- conflict gave him a dream of how he might escape,
& a choice was to be made. He was at a crossroads,
& Patrick chose going back to his wealthy birth family.

So before working off his indentured servitude,
he escaped leaving this debt & his Irish friends behind.
His escape was simple enough, jumping onto a ship,
but on his journey back home
he encountered hardships he wasn't prepared for but managed to survive.

Upon his return to his family he was held & hugged by his relieved parents,
then re-indoctrinated most strictly
into the Roman Church & made his penance for his "temptation".
to "go native" & enjoy the Irish ways.

Yet He continually longed for Ireland
& dreamed the Irish were calling him back  saying,
"Come hither and walk with us once more."
The only way he could get back to Ireland,
with the sanction of Rome, was to go as a missionary.
Thus, He convinced himself it was for their own good
for the  Irish to join his religion,
since joining theirs, would mean denouncing his
own family & Rome.
So he went back to "save" them after years of study & indoctrination.
Finally Pope Celestine commissioned him as a bishop
& gave him his way. Patrick had a unique advantage
knowing the ways of the Irish people & their beliefs
that other missionaries might not.
He used this knowledge to his advantage to try  to make himself
seem a more powerful Druid for his own god,
than those of the Irish Gods & Goddesses.
He knew when the Druids would be lighting the sacred fires & so on.

It is said, Snakes never really made it over to what is now called Ireland
before the time the Island was cut off from the other land by water.
Nevertheless,
St. Patrick was credited with driving out all snakes from Ireland
by beating on his drum with such oppressive clamoring noise
that all the snakes went into the sea and drowned.
Of course, this is more symbolic than real,
representing Saint Patrick's mission of driving paganism "underground".
Snakes were an important symbol of paganism.
A snake shaped in a circle was a symbol of the never ending circle of life
through regeneration & reincarnation.
Water was a symbol of the spiritual & subconscious mind.
The ocean a symbol of discovering hidden mysteries.

Paganism & Seasonal Celebrations
of Mother Nature & The Greenfolk
which was never truly eradicated,
simply went "underground" & became "occult"
until it could be openly revived without persecution.
The Paganism of Ireland was a beautiful spirituality
which strengthened the Irish People from ancient times onward
& remains forever a glorious part of The Collective Consciousness.
(Became the hidden mysteries, ever a part of the subconscious mind
& the true spirits knowledge.)
 

Also see: Mt. Croach Patrick
 

Since, St. Patrick was not Irish by birth, but born to Roman Over Lords
occupying what was previously Scottish  Territory,
 while he would hardly have been considered an innocent captive by most,
when taken to be a shepherd in Ireland, his youth at the time
& the compassion of the Irish made him so.
 
 

St. Patrick remains a popular saint to many,
because he is credited with converting Ireland to Roman Catholicism.
March 17th is thought to be the day of his death.
Thus St. Patty's Day.
 
 

The  SHamrock
Shamrock as Triple Deity Symbol :
"The Trinity" of christian patriarchy was a
direct masculinized spin-off
of the ancient Triple-Goddess concept of deity
that was prevalent throughout most ancient cultures.
While St. Patrick was later sometimes credited with using
the shamrock's 3 leaves to teach the Irish-Pagans
about the concept of the (3 in 1) triple "Holy Trinity",
in all fairness the Irish & Celtic understanding of such a concept
& of the shamrock
long pre-existed christianity itself!

Also, historical fact has it that the christian "Doctrine of  Trinity"
was not even a part
of  christian doctrine, including the Roman Christian Church,
at the time of St. Patrick's life, much less his sojourn to Ireland.
Saint Patrick first introduced Christianity to Ireland  in A.D. 432

The  doctrine of Trinity (De Trinatate ) was first formulated
& introduced to christianity by the Gaulish bishop St. Hillary of Pontiers,
in the 500's & was subsequently used
to utilize & capitalize on the Celtic triple obsession.
St. Patrick had already died long before this happened.
So Actually, The Roman Church borrowed the trinity from the Celts,
(as well as the symbology of the shamrock ) & not the other way around.
Later, other judeo-christian sects & religions which adopted the trinity,
but where not as favorable to the feminine divine as the Celts were known to be.
 
 

The shamrock & Triple Goddesses such as Brighid, long preceded the
christainized doctrine of trinity, which was simply a masculinization of this.
Although the judeo-christian version  of this pre-existing triple deity concept,
no doubt, worked well enough as a way
 to explain how a self described monotheistic religion
such as christianity, could have more than one god,
while at the same time claiming to have the "one true god"
& so was thus later adopted by other judeo-christian sects/religions
that were unfortunately less favorable to the concept of feminine divinity.

The Triple Goddess Brighid was also changed
to  the mythology  of St. Brigit,
because she could not be eradicated outright.

She was declared as being a helper to Mary, Mother of God
as Midwife to Mary upon Christ's Birth.
The Celtic Church was better able to reconcile feminine divinity
with Christianity & so much of Ireland is Catholic.
Catholics also give more honour to Mother Mary
than many other christian denominations.

St. Patty's Day
like St. Valentine's Day,
is celebrated joyfully, all over the world,
whether in  Catholic & Secular Religions & Cultures.

Unfortunately, the 12th century Pope gave all of Ireland to England
as a papal fief !
However the Irish managed to maintain local control.
So English control of the Island didn't terribly
happen until the 17th century,
when Catholic King James II was defeated by the
protestant, King William of Orange at
The Battle of Boyne. (1690)

England & Ireland became the
“United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,”
By the Act of Union (1801),
Causing rapid chronic decline in the Irish economy
in the  following  decades after this.
Though the  population had  reached 8.25 million
when the great potato famine  of 1846–48 took many lives.
During these bleak times,
                more than 2 million people were to immigrate to North America
in order to survive persecution & starvation.
Through back breaking work,
money they sent home to their families
helped some other Irish folk
to stave off starvation.
A large percentage of the North American population
is directly descended from these brave Irish Immigrants.
The Irish immigrants spread many of their old customs & their fairy lore
throughout North America.
Samhain became Halloween, May Day was celebrated in the U.S.A. & Canada
& St. Patty's Day became a time for Leprechauns to take over the whole U.S.A
& some parts of Canada.

Back home in Ireland, Guerrilla warfare against British
                forces followed proclamation of a republic by the rebels in 1919.
The Irish Free State
                was established as a dominion on Dec. 6, 1922,
with the six northern counties (Ulstermen)
        remaining as part of the United Kingdom.
The constitution of 1937 changed the nation's name back to Éire,
(So named after the ancient Irish Goddess Éire,
re-fullfilling an old promise of the Gael's of yore.)
The Republic of Ireland was re-proclaimed on April 18, 1949.
Ireland withdrew from the Commonwealth,
however  in 1955 Ireland entered the United Nations.
(This is just a brief summary & no wise
a complete discourse on a complex subject.)
 

The Triple Goddess Brighid.
Poetry, Smithcraft, Midwifery

Therefore, christianized legend of her places her as midwife to Mary at Christ's Birth,
thus amalgamating her function of midwifery into christian mythology.

Similarly,  Lugh is said by some  to have been "diminuinized"
to a leprechaun (wee shoe maker)
because he did not fit into the christian pantheon very well.
If this is so, then the irony is, that all the leprechaun lore
has served to keep his symbolic helpers alive through playful folklore.
When one searchs for the source of Leprechauns,
one is invariably led back to the story of Lugh!

When many think of St. Patty's day the first thing that springs to mind
(besides a green shamrock, ) is an Irish  Leprechaun!  ;o)

Back