There is no other time of year when it is easier to find a party than St. Patrick’s day. People will be wearin’ the green, adorned by four-leaf clovers and they’ll be drinking green beer. Let’s face it. St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, is the one day when everyone can claim to be Irish. The thing is, like the majority of the “Irish for a day” folk, most of what we know surrounding St. Patrick’s Day is…well, BLARNEY!
The Irish are truly great story weavers. They really do have the gift of blarney. According to Wikipedia the word blarney has come to mean “clever, flattering, or coaxing talk”. If you have every dated an Irish lad you know this to be fact.
As children we are told of the hero of the piece driving the snakes from Ireland. In fact, in religious lore the snake represented evil (you know that whole snake offering the apple to Adam thing). St. Patrick, having devoted his life to converting the pagans to Christians was considered to have driven “evil” out of Ireland.
Probably the biggest misconception of all is that…dare I say it…that Patrick was Irish. In reality, he was not.
In the Monday, March 12, 1995, Toronto Star, Travel Editor Mitchell Smith explained:
“It is not widely known that “Saint Patrick” was Roman not Irish and his real name was Sucat. Somewhere around 405 AD Sucat, as a lad, was taken prisoner and then sold into slavery in Ulster. For 6 years the Christian slave Sucat worked as a sheep herder. When he escaped he returned to Britain. Later he went to France where he eventually became a priest. At this point Sucat became Patrick and in his Confessio claimed he had a dream of Irish voices begging him to return. When he set sail to return to Ireland he was headed for the area he had been kept a slave, however as they say, with the luck of the Irish he was blown off course and then captured by some local peasants. He wasted no time in converting his pagan Irish captors to Christianity, starting with their leader.”
The 4 leaf clover is not, I repeat, not a shamrock.
Of course the most obvious difference is that the 4 leaf clover has, wait for it…4 leaves. The shamrock has 3. Although clover is most often found in nature with three leaves, rare four-leaf clovers do exist. Finding one is thought to bring someone extreme luck. The folklore surrounding four-leaf clovers is that each leaf of a four-leaf clover represents something different: first is hope; the second is faith; the third is love; and the fourth is happiness.
Legend has it that St. Patrick used the shamrock with its three leaves to visually illustrate the concept of the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) when trying to convert pagans to Christianity.
If ever anything apart from the shamrock is associated with Ireland and the Irish it must be Guinness, the national drink. With its famous black body and soft creamy head, it is an icon of Ireland and its people — strong, smooth unhurried and extremely palatable. And no self-respecting Irish person would ever drink green beer.
Speaking of dying things green…I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when someone came up with the idea to dye the Chicago River green. I know there has to be a a tale of blarney behind that one. Don’t get me wrong. My favourite colour is green but I would have to draw the line on this one.
As for the wearing of the green, many simply believe it referred to wearing a shamrock, but an American tradition of pinching those not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day was started in the 1700s in Boston, Massachusetts. It really has nothing to do with Ireland or St. Patrick. They thought if you wore green, it made you invisible to the Leprechauns, which was good because they would pinch anyone they could see. So the pinching is to warn and remind you about the Leprechauns.
OK, don’t get me started on these little guys…
One of my favourite parts of St. Patrick’s Day (apart from all of the above) is getting to see the wee Irish dancers. When I was much younger I longed to join them with their wonderful bouncing curls. It was quite the blow when I found out that even their curls were just another part of the blarney.
The absolute best stories are always based in some truth. The more you weave fact with fiction the better the chances your audience will not be able to tell the difference. The Irish are truly great story weavers. The masters of the tall tale. They really do have the gift of blarney. Much like most of us bloggers.
May your glass
be ever full.
May the roof over your
head be always strong.
And may you be
in heaven half an hour
Before the Devil knows
you’re dead.
What a wonderful post, Michelle. I just love it. And I find it quite inspiring.
As an Irish person who has actually — I kid you not — kissed the Blarney Stone, I loved reading the history. Some I knew — that St. Patrick was a slave from Britain, and that he explained the trinity with the Shamrock.
BUT! Those curls are not all a myth. While I never was an Irish dancer, I do have me golden blond Irish curls. When I traveled to Ireland, I kept seeing my hair on other folks! It was a wee bit confusing for my husband and son!
And for you my friend, I have this wish:
May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty. And our ale never turn musty.
Oh, you lucky girl to have all those wonderful curls. I suspect that a few others are the real thing. It was just such a surprise the first time I saw a mother pull off her daughters hair to sort it out and then plop it back on her head.
You know I love all things Irish. I have a collection of Irish music, Irish books, Irish movies, and all kinds of crazy stuff. I’ve always been a little obsessed with Ireland. I can’t believe I didn’t know/remember you were Irish.
I love your little blessing and send it right back to you.
Thanks, Michelle.
I love all things Irish, too. We went to Ireland in 1999. However, it wasn’t the best trip because we were planning on hearing music to our heart’s content. But the music was in the pubs and they wouldn’t let 8 year old Jacob in — and so we were sadly disappointed. But the land was lovely, the people grand … It really was the only country we visited that was not overly welcoming to kids.
I dream of visiting Ireland and kissing the Blarney Stone. I dream of visiting Ireland and doing a whole lot of things. I have a list…a very long list.
It seems odd about the children. In all my movies the kids run in and out the pubs like they own the place. Sometimes my fact & fiction crosses over when it come to the Emerald Isle.
I think it is different now. Too many concerns about the drink, as they call it. So they keep kids out of the pubs in most places. There was one where we were allowed in that had music. But it was mobbed and everybody had a cigarette in their hand just at Jacob’s eye level. We didn’t linger!
In a few others we had beers outside near a window and heard the music wafting.
My favorite bit was when John asked our B&B owner in Dublin whether the speed limit signs, which showed one number, were in kilometers or miles. “Oh, you never do know that, now do you?” was his response. Priceless!
That is hysterical! I’m glad I wasn’t drinking when I read that last line.
Since you kissed the Blarney Stone, I will have to disregard all your protestations about adventuring.
It actually was scary. It was raining really hard that day. Normally for touring a castle, that just adds to the ambiance. But Blarney Castle, like most Irish castles, is a ruin.
To kiss the Stone, you have to climb up the towers to the top, stand in line, then lie on your back, jutting your body over a big hole (with someone holding your legs) and kiss the stone while hanging upside down. So it’s a germ-magnet. (John said he would have refused to kiss it if it hadn’t been raining!) But then we had to navigate very steep stairs that were soaking wet. Dangerous indeed.
But I’d promised my Dad I would do it …
The effects of a well-drawn pint of Guinness are legendary. As is the communal spirit of St Patricks day.
Happy St Pats to you!
Thank you, El Guapo. I’m really looking forward to it.
Thanks for that explanation of the difference between the symbolism of the shamrock and the four-leaf clover. And, agreed on the green river. Very well done! Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Thanks, Hippie. Have a great one yourself.
The more you weave fact with fiction… well said Michele, and sort of encouraging. Tellers of tale indeed. And of course, great to see a post from you, even if you do manage to dispel some myths. When you started on the Guinness thing, I got a bit worried, as that’s my favorite beer.
Excellent post, my friend. I am still trying to figure out the greenness of the Chicago river. I hope that’s just a trick of the light.
Happy St. Pats!
I would never mess with Guinness. It is the only beer I will drink.
I hate to tell you this but there is no trick of light. They really do dye it green. Yuk!
I didn’t know most of what you covered in your post…thanks! I can’t believe Chicago colored their river…or is that blarney?
I’m not sure why no one else seems to know about the river in Chicago being dyed green. Would I lead any of you astray? 😉
Here is what happened this year, yesterday…
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local/chicago_news&id=9467477
Well, Michelle, since I’m Irish I’m going to take this good story weaving compliment to heart! I also would love to be an Irish dancer. Looks like so much fun. This is fascinating post! Thanks for all the history.
Don’t forget your green now and I hope you get to celebrate with a glass of Guinness. My great grandmother, when she was up in years (which she was the whole time I knew her), used to cite that last saying over and over while we had dinner. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Michelle! I bet the Irish don’t drink green beer.
I will be wearing green, Amy. I am well stocked with all things Irish. Believe me there is at least one Guinness with my name on it.
So, in Ireland the craze for Green doesn’t extend to the beer? Oh what a relief! 🙂
This is what I am told. Having never been to Ireland I have yet to see it for myself.
You’ll have to tell me 🙂
Great post, Michelle. I’ve never given much thought to green beer, but I can’t even look at green bagels.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you and He-Who, and all your readers!
Thank you, Charles. I don’t think green is a great colour for any kind of food unless it came that way like broccoli. Even then a lot of people won’t touch the greens.
Have a great St. Patrick’s Day. I hear there is a party on the East Coast.
Happy St Patrick’s Day Michelle!
Thank you, Jim. And the same to you. I sure would like to know how you are spending your day.
Hic!
I’m only a quarter Irish, so I never took all that much stock in this holiday. That said, there is NEVER a time I am not in the mood to watch those wee Irish dancers.
Aren’t they adorable? I could watch them all day.
You are probably a quarter more Irish than some that celebrate the day.
Have a good one.
Thanks for all this great information. My mom was a pure-blood Irishwoman, but she married a mongrel so I’m a mutt. Happy St. Paddy’s day!
You’re a mutt with some good Irish blood in you. That’s more than most can say. Happy St. Paddy’s Day to you as well Peg.
A great post, Michelle. I didn’t know that St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. Must have been part of that blarney tradition that made him so. One thing I don’t understand, though: Why isn’t Guinness – as good as it is – green? Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I’m very happy Guinness isn’t green. I wouldn’t be able to drink it if it was.
Thanks for stopping by, Otto.
And I most likely agree with you – Guinness should be dark, nitrogenous and foamy!
Sláinte! I didn’t know the distinction between a shamrock and a clover. Thanks for that. 🙂
Not big on the green rivers…really, people, why? But do like the dancers. And the place of some of the best storytellers ever.
Oh, the stories that have come out of that place. The world is a better place for the stories.
Aloha and top o’ the mornin’ to ya! It’s good to be back temporarily to the blogosphere and reading my favorite writers. I love your annual St. Patrick’s Day posts and look forward to them each year. 🙂 I had a wonderful St. Patty’s day on Maui. I had a busy day at work and then got to run a 5K immediately afterward. What was I thinking?! It was all in good fun, though. It was the annual “Run ‘Til You’re Green” 5K which allows runners to chase a leprechaun to the nearby pub for free beer. Not too shabby! Had myself a Guinness on tap to boot… I’m sure you would be happy to learn that it was extra dark, foamy, and gassy… even all the way out here in Maui! 😉
It’s wonderful to hear from you. My favourite St. Patrick’s Day is still the one I spent in Maui and the Guinness was wonderful there. It will be hard to top that one. I love that you chase a leprechaun and “Run ‘Til You’re Green”. Thanks for popping in.
By the way, whatever happened to He Who? I noticed he hasn’t blogged for a while as well. Too busy in his quest for fry trucks, eh? 😉
You’re right. He hasn’t. I’m not sure why he hasn’t written lately. I can attest to the fact he has a lot to say.
Ha ha! I do miss reading his posts. Tell him to get back on that wagon! 😉
Thanks for a great St. P’s post, Michelle. I especially love the pic of the Chicago River. I lived there for 12 years and miss it!
Really? Did you ever participate in the “greening” of the waters?
My home town in Niagara Falls. They turn the falls green as well but they do it with lights.
No but I participated in drinking green beer all night long.
=)
I normally make a corned beef in the crock pot – the only way I can eat it. But I’ve been so behind this year I forgot. I mean I forgot the entire holiday. And I love St. Patrick’s Day. Your post has made me feel a bit better, seeing the Leprechauns and the green river. Nice.
I’m glad you got a little bit of St. Patrick’s Day through my post. One of these days I will learn how to do that corned beef in a crock pot.
It’s the easiest thing in the world. Just put it in with a little water and the contents of the seasoning pack – or your own – and let it do its work. Sometimes I add potatoes but I don’t like overdone cabbage. I just steam it right before dinner. This is now the only way we eat corned beef.
I definitely have to try it.
You’re a lovely lass, Michelle.
A lovely lass indeed.
Well, thank you, Laddy!