The first thing I noticed about the stained glass painting from the Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow, Ireland: nobody was wearing green.
Supposedly, this artwork shows St. Patrick giving a lesson in Christian precepts to three Irish kings. Presumably, the three kings had been raised as Pagans, and may have been skeptical, initially, of the claim that there was only one God, and that sinners were confined to Hell for eternity. But St. Patrick was apparently a persuasive messenger, because — 1,500 years later — people of Irish descent are still celebrating his feast day on March 17 in Chicago, New York, Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, Savannah, Detroit, New Orleans, San Francisco… and Pagosa Springs.
Typically, the celebrants wear green.
So that’s why I noticed the absence of any green clothing in the Carlow Cathedral artwork. Even St. Patrick himself neglected to wear green.
I found the following image online, of the Chicago River dyed green on March 17, 2018. My browser claimed the image had a Creative Commons license, meaning it was free to republish. But it did display a copyright notice. So maybe the Daily Post is taking a risk?
The tradition of dyeing the Chicago River green on St. Patrick’s Day started in 1962, thanks to a creative idea from then-Mayor Richard J. Daley. He had initially wanted to turn the entire Lake Michigan green, but ultimately settled for dying the river, using a harmless green dye traditionally used by plumbers to detect sewage leaks.
The Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union use a vegetable-based powder, which is allegedly non-toxic and safe for wildlife, to turn the river into a breathtaking shade of green. The exact formula remains a closely guarded secret. An added benefit: if the river is leaking, the plumbers can find the leak.
Green doesn’t seem to be a particularly popular color among Catholics in general, except in Ireland, and here in the U.S.
In Pagosa Springs, the key celebration of St. Patrick takes place in the parking lot of the St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church on South Pagosa Boulvard. Almost everyone displayed a green item of clothing.
Billed at the “world’s shortest St.Patrick’s Day Parade”, the annual event took place last Saturday, March 15 at 11am. The parade traversed parking lot, which is about 280 feet long.
But on the wrong day.
The parade included Boy Scouts, three baton twirlers, children handing out rubber snakes, a Spanish Fiesta banner, a fire truck and an ambulance, the County Fair Royalty, a dozen dogs with their owners, and a well-decorated Elite Disposal truck.
St. Patrick Herself (apparently, Episcopalians are not fixated on gender roles) rode on the Church float, surrounded by happy Episcopalian children.
Records indicate that St. Patrick, who was reportedly a biological male, originally hailed from England or maybe from Scotland, but was — according to his own autobiographical writings — kidnapped and carried to Ireland, and enslaved there, compelled to serve a shepherd. He eventually escaped back to England, but apparently, once you’ve tasted Irish whiskey, the urge to return never dies. He sailed back to the Emerald Isle in around 432 AD and set about baptizing the Pagans and getting churches built. Still working as a shepherd, you might say.
I imagine it was hard on the Irish kings when St. Patrick arrived and began converting their Pagan subjects to Christianity. For one thing, it meant that the peasants started taking Sundays off from work and attending Mass once or twice a day. That must have had a measurable impact on production.
Fortunately, not all of the peasants were converted. Some hung on to their Pagan beliefs, even up to the present day.
If you want to learn more about Druids and such, Irish educators Lora O’Brien and Jon O’Sullivan co-founded the The Irish Pagan School in 2017 to promote and support genuine native Irish spiritual teaching and teachers.
We provide Online Classes on Irish Paganism, Mythology, genuine Irish History, Heritage, Culture, Folklore, Magic and Spirituality, all taught by native Irish Educators.
No doubt Lora and Jon have St. Patrick tossing and turning in his grave.
One of the legends connected with St. Patrick has him banishing the snakes from Ireland. But this is likely just a legend. Naturalist Nigel Monaghan, a curator at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, has searched extensively through Irish fossil collections and records, and claims that Ireland never had any snakes, at least since the end of the last Ice Age. (As any Pagan can tell you.)
So the Pagosa children who were handing out rubber snakes during the St. Patrick’s Day parade at the Episcopal Church may have been misinformed.
Where are the genuine native Irish educators when we need them?
Another legend more likely to be true has St. Patrick chiding a stingy innkeeper who filled her customers cups only half-full. St. Patrick explained that her penny-pinching behavior had resulted in a fat demon taking up residence in her cellar. Upon returning to the inn some time later, St. Patrick found the customers drinking from cups filled to the brim with good Irish whiskey, and upon investigating the cellar with the inkeeper, found the demon withering away.
The demon then flees in a flash of flame, and Patrick decrees that people should have a drink of whiskey on his feast day in memory of this. This is said to be the origin of ‘drowning the shamrock’ on Saint Patrick’s Day.
I was previously unaware of this tradition, but now that I’ve been enlightened, I have every intention of drowning my shamrock later today.