I have always loved St. Patrick’s Day – it’s a celebration of the fun of being Irish! Has very little to do with the saint for whom I’m named.
I love the music, love the feeling of all that green, love seeing everyone smile, be more playful, make silly jokes. People are really lighter that day.
Not crazy about the green beer, but it is more fun than the regular kind – turning the normal inside out for a day. And the real Irish breakfasts offered bright and early.
There likely never were snakes in Ireland – it’s an island after all. Many think driving out the snakes was a metaphor for driving out the native and natural religion and code of laws of the people and forcibly bringing in Christianity. Even then, the church had to adopt many Irish customs to make it all stick, simply attaching them to St. Patrick and thus making it okay.
Last time I was in Ireland, somewhere in County Wicklow I saw a statue of the Virgin Mary, with a snake round about her feet, in a very friendly fashion. None of this stepping on the snake’s head, which is what I would have expected. So the Irish get it, for sure.
And the reason it’s St. Paddy’s Day – the Irish Gaelic word for Patrick is Padraig – hence the Paddy. And the origin of the phrase for police vehicles being called paddy wagons – simple: it was to take the paddys and the micks away!
Ah, tis glorious to be Irish! A funny and wry way to look at the world. And everyone’s Irish on The Big Day.