Céad Míle Fáilte

On Wednesday, many Americans will celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, but who was Saint Patrick, and why do we celebrate him?  Heck, what do you actually know about the man?  You probably know that he was Irish, that he chased all the snakes out of Ireland, that his favorite color was green, he really liked shamrocks, and he loved to eat corned beef and cabbage and drink beer.  Oh, and we celebrate his birthday on March 17 every year.

And you’d be wrong on all accounts…all of ‘em.

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He was actually born in Roman Britain (now either England, Scotland, or Wales) in the late fourth century, but his birth name wasn’t really Patrick.  His given name was Maewyn Succat.  As a young man of 16, he was kidnapped and taken to Ireland, and bound into slavery.

It is not clear whether he was freed or escaped from slavery, but he made his way back to Britain, where he eventually entered the Catholic priesthood.  Sometime after entering the priesthood, Maewyn took the name Patricius or Patrick, which is derived from the Latin term for father figure.

He must not have borne any ill-will toward the Irish because the young priest returned to their country, where he set to work converting the pagen Druid culture to Christianity.

According to legend, in the process of preaching to the pagens, Patrick went head-to-head with the demon Crum Dubh who lived on the mountain Cruach Phadraig.  With copious amounts of prayer, Father Patrick cast Crum Dubh, his minions, his magicians, and his snakes off the island.

While I’ve never crossed paths with Mr. Crum Dubh, his minions, or magicians, natural history tells me that the island was covered with a thick layer of ice during the last ice age, making it much, much too cold to support reptile life and, being an island, distance from the nearest land that did harbor serpents kept them from moving in after the glaciers receded. 

Note that Patrick himself never claimed to have chased the snakes out.  I suspect that some of his fans used serpents to represent the pagan religions which Patrick did actually help to cast out.  At least one of those cults used a snake as their symbol, so that kind of supports my theory.

I hope you also noted that I said, “help to cast out”.  Conversion to Christianity had begun some time before Patrick arrived in Ireland, and was still underway as much as 1000 years after he left.  Hey, he did help though, and I don’t have a problem with giving him a share in the credit.

Another tradition is that, in his efforts to convert the pagans, Father Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to help him explain how the holy trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) could be three different entities, yet still part of a whole.

Father Patrick had such luck converting the Picts and Anglo-Saxons to Catholicism that the grateful Irish Catholics made him a saint.  It was customary to associate a particular plant with each saint, and the shamrock was an obvious choice.  Of course, that was in the 1720s, and Patrick died in the fifth century, so I don’t think you can say it was his choice.

Now, clearly St. Patrick liked green though, right?  Well, he could have, but the color associated with him at that time (and with Ireland too) was royal blue.  Yeah, blue.  It was featured in the royal court and on ancient Irish flags. 

So how did green get identified with St. Patrick?

Well, in 1798, the Irish Rebellion took place and many Irish citizens wanted to distinguish themselves from England.  Since they had long been called The Emerald Isle, (because of the island’s verdant landscape) people began to identify themselves more with green.  Because Ireland identified with green, and St. Patrick was Irish (well, he’s an Irish saint) the color was associated with him too, even though he was well past knowing it by that time.

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What about the emphasis put on eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day?  Whether it was St. Patrick’s favorite food or not, it’s a traditional Irish meal, right?

Not really.

At the time of St. Patrick, cattle on Ireland were used more for milk production than meat.  In the 1600s, Irish farmers began to export beef to England, and salting, though still expensive, was one of the most cost-effective means of preserving the beef for export.  Because of the size of the grains of salt used was similar to that of corn, the Brits began to say the meat was “corned” beef.

However, many of the Irish still couldn’t afford to eat their own beef, profiting more from exporting it to England.  By the 1800s many Irish immigrated to the United States due to the Irish potato famine, and a lot of them settled in New York City.  Irish residents of the Big Apple found that they could buy beef from Jewish butchers at an affordable price.  The Jewish butchers used a kosher cut of meat (the brisket) for their corned beef.  The process of corning made the normally tougher cut into a more tender and flavorful one.

Because they were splurging on the formerly unaffordable corned beef, the Irish combined it with cabbage, which was one of the more inexpensive vegetables…in New York City.

Thus, in a kind of cultural cross-association, corned beef and cabbage became associated with the Irish immigrants, then with their country of origin, then with that country’s patron saint and, finally, with the holiday associated with him.

Now, I don’t honestly know if St. Patrick really liked to drink beer or not.  He may very well have.  The Catholic Church established St. Patrick’s Day as a Feast Day in 1631.   For the next three centuries it was actually illegal in Ireland for pubs to be open on that day.  Yep, up until the late 20^th century pubs legally had to remain closed all day, so drinking beer couldn’t have been a big part of the celebration.

In the 1980s, the Budweiser company began a media blitz aimed at associating the holiday with consumption of their product…and it worked.  St. Patrick’s Day is now fourth on the list of holidays most associated with alcohol consumption in the United States.  Americans drink more beer only on Christmas, New Years Day, and Independence Day.

So, this Wednesday, when you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, you’ll know that so many of the things that are considered must-dos or must-haves on that day, really don’t have much to do with the actual man you are celebrating at all.

You’re welcome.

So why don’t we at least celebrate the man on his birthday.  Well, that one is a little tricky.  You see, we don’t know either the date or the year of Maewyn Succat’s birth.  We do, however, know that he died on March 17, 461.

Hey, I’m just glad he changed his name to Patrick.  It would be awkward to wish everyone a happy St. Succat’s Day. 

Maybe that’s just me; I don’t know.

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I know you were getting anxious because I didn’t address the tradition of pinching each other for not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day.  Well, hold on to your non-alcoholic (I hope) green beer and listen to this.

First, that tradition has nothing to do with St. Patrick either.  According to Irish folklore, Leprechauns are mischievous little fairies that make shoes, own a pot of gold, and really like to play tricks on people.  One of their favorite tricks is to pinch people.  However, since they are native to the Emerald Isle, you can fool them by camouflaging yourself in green so that you blend in with the greenery.  If they can’t see you, they can’t pinch you. 

Just saying.

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I hope you have a happy St. Patrick’s Day.  If you choose to imbibe alcohol as part of your celebration, please be judicious.  I don’t have enough readers to spare any of you.

Oh, in case you’ve been waiting for me to explain the title of this post, here it is.  “Céad Míle Fáilte” (pronounced key-add-uh meal-uh fall-chuh) is a friendly gaelic greeting.  It means, one hundred thousand welcomes.

Céad Míle Fáilte my friends.  Céad Míle Fáilte.

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