But not in my home. You see, my home is a St. Patrick's Day-free zone.Being a typical American, I never gave much thought to St. Patrick's Day when I was younger. Like most of us, I saw it as just an excuse to wear green, pretend to be Irish (regardless of any real heredity to back it up) and - most importantly - consume large quantities of alcoholic beverages while doing the same with other green-clad "Irish" folks.
As the years passed, I came to understand what people were really talking about when they said "St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland." Actually, I was ultimately kind of surprised that the man's holy day engendered so much celebration:
In all likelihood the whole tale is some sort of allegory for "cleansing" Ireland of Druid worship (which worked well, except for the annual Druidic Wickerman festival in Ireland; the festival dates to before Patrick and attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. I guess not all the snakes are gone!)(You can read more of this amusing article here: http://www.infidels.org/kiosk/article272.html. It's worth a read.)
I grew to realize I really had no interest in celebrating St. Patty's Day, given what it really stands for. Now that I share my life with an Irish lass - straight from County Cork, and from a family with a verbally passed Druidic tradition (turns out Patty missed a few of those "snakes") - my position on this day has been firmly cemented.
Besides, it seems to me that whole idea of using the name of a religious zealot as an excuse to party is a little... unnecessary. After all, if I want to get together with others and pretend I'm from a magical, far-off land while drinking beer, I can do that any day I want. And I can pretend to be an elf or a magic-user while I do it!
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3 comments:
Actually, celebrating a religious zealot by partying with reckless abandon is kind of funny.
Of course, it could lead to more "heinous" celebrations like recognizing April 20th with Jewish prayer and plenty of oven-cooked foods.
Hey, where would Christmas be with us "hanging" things all over a big lit up tree?
Hm, Santa/Satan.
Same letters in their names.
Both wear red & black.
Have they evey been seen together?
Coincidence? >:)
"Actually, celebrating a religious zealot by partying with reckless abandon is kind of funny."
I know it's not a religious celebration, but if St. Patty's Day were more along the lines of Britain's Guy Fawkes Night - you know: "Hahha! Dude, you're a dick! Where's the beer?!" - I'd be right out there with the other green drunks. :D
This is Chris's fiancee the one straight off the boat from Ireland and raised in a long Druidic tradition. As me grandfather used to say. "St. Patrick was a bastard and not even Irish, and if it weren't for the day off to drink and eat no one would bother." Another interesting point to add is that Ireland has more saints than any where else in the world. It's because we appoint them ourselves and even the Catholic church knows better than to tell us we can't do that..
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