St. Patrick

In Honor of St. Patrick!

Good morning my fellow Rotarians!  With St Patrick’s Day upon us how many of you know how and why this special day exists? 
 
Well, it all started with a band of Irish marauders in the fifth century who kidnapped a 16-year old Welsh kid named Maewyn.  As it happened, young Maewyn became enslaved and was sent to the mountains as a shepherd where he learned how to pray and a few years later he had a dream which he called his religious awakening.   

He spent a number of years studying in several monasteries and eventually he took on a new name, Patrick.  Pope Celestine sent him to evangelize England and then Ireland.  Within 30 years he had converted all of Ireland to Christianity and Ireland became known as the Land of Saints.   

Patrick founded schools and churches and was a great teacher.  The shamrock, a trifoliate clover, became his cleverest teaching tool.  He used it to explain the Trinity — each leaf representing the father, son and Holy Spirit while forming one union.  It was simple, powerful and very effective.

There is some blarney in the stories about St. Patrick; the most notable example being where he was delivering a sermon on a hilltop and he banished the country's snakes.  This may have been symbolic to pagan practices, but it cannot be true because the island of Ireland never had any native snakes.

Saint Patrick died on March 17^th, 461 AD.  The date was declared a religious feast day where traditional Lenten prohibitions were waived; dancing, drinking, and eating meat.  Today in Ireland, most businesses, excluding restaurants and pubs, are closed on March 17^th and they have a 6-day festival to honor St. Patrick in Dublin from March 13-19 that features music, theater, dance, comedy, fireworks and more; it draws over a million spectators from around the world each year. 

In fact, as we speak, over 90 marching band kids from Jefferson, Washing and Kennedy HS’s are in route to Dublin to march in the BIG parade along with two other parades in Ireland this next week. 

The first St. Patrick's Day parade did not take place in Ireland, however; it was in New York City in 1872 so downtrodden Irish immigrants could publicly declare their Irish heritage pride.  Today St. Patrick’s Day parades take place across Europe, the Americas and Asia.  It is the world’s largest celebration of a single nationality.  Over 34 million people in the US claim Irish heritage and yet Ireland is a country of just under 6 million people. 

So, for a moment I suggest we lift a glass to honor that patron saint Patrick… (hear, hear!) the man who saved a country and preserved the Irish heritage for centuries.  And that is our Bottom of the News on this Friday, March 16, 2013.  

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