Celebrating St Patrick

It’s a great day for the Irish, it’s a great day for fair!
The sidewalks of New York are thick with blarney
For shure you’d think New York was Old Kilarney!
It’s a great day for the Shamrock, for the flags in full array
We’re feeling so inspirish, shure because for all the Irish
It’s a great, great day!

Having commemorated the great feasts of St. Alban and St. Valentine it’s  time to turn our attention to another well known feast – that of St Patrick on March 17. Not surprisingly, the day earns a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland and is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival.

St Patrick  was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the “Apostle of Ireland”, he is the primary patron saint of Ireland. According to tradition dating from the early Middle Ages, Patrick was the first bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, and is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland, converting a pagan society in the process.

When he was 16 he was reputedly captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland. He lived there for six years as an animal herder before escaping and returning to his family.

After becoming a cleric, he returned to spread Christianity in northern and western Ireland. He is said to have used the shamrock as a metaphor for the Holy Trinity and, by the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as patron saint of Ireland.

St Patrick’s Day, his feast day on March 17, is also a day of celebrating for two  members of our church both born on the great feast day . . . as long as I can remember I have worn a piece of shamrock on that day to invoke good luck!

It’s a great day for the Irish, it’s a great day for fair!
Begosh, there’s not a cop to stop a raiding
Begorra all the cops are out parading!
It’s a great day for the Shamrock, for the flags in full array
And as we go a swinging, ev’ry Irish heart is singing
It’s a great, great day!

— Lynn Radnedge