St. Patrick's Day

[AlecWest]

The following was written with my tongue firmly in cheek - so as to invoke an Irish custom that predates even St. Patrick ... Blarney. 

http://bit.ly/143BZf8 (a shortened URL)

Regards,
J. Alec West

[Mirror]

Oh, I didn't know that. Very interesting.

By the way, I waa curious about wether there are nakes in Ireland, so I checked and I found this:

A legend tells that Saint Patrick banished all snakes from Ireland, but in reality there is no suggestion that snakes ever existed in Ireland.

So, was Saint Patrick, in fact, canonized for something he didn't do then?

[trekcon]

OK, but what did he actually do to entice the snakes to swim across the Irish sea?

Sounds a bit like a legend to me.

Maybe he simply told the snakes they were going to introduce venum control laws in Scotland and provide universal health care to their victims.

The snakes then freely fled to Ireland where they had a right to attack people in self-defense... 

[qoSagh]

Snake was not a literal term, his driving out of the snakes was about driving out the pagans. It should be noted however that he did not drive out the people but the religions, he spent his life converting the Irish people to Christianity, thus driving out the snakes. It was only in later years when people started to think of this literally that they went about trying to disprove it by noting that there never were any snakes there.

[AlecWest]

Sounds a bit like a legend to me.

... and that's exactly what it is (grin).  I made the whole thing up and send it out to friends occasionally as a "gotcha."  But, it merely follows the old Irish tradition of "blarney" (telling tall tales).  While it's true that St. Patrick really existed, it seems the "banishing snakes" tale is pure blarney, too.  Ireland has never had indigenous snakes.  Here's the straight scoop about him from the Catholic Church:

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=89

FWIW, when I submitted it to the "Northwest Opinions" online magazine, I honestly expected to get a rejection from the editors, hehe.  But, they either thought it was humorous "Irish blarney" - or maybe, the "gotcha" worked on them, too.

P.S.  My stepdad was a first-generation U.S. citizen - with both of his parents coming from Scotland.  He refused to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and often said, "Why the Hell would a Scottish Presbyterian want to celebrate an Irish Catholic holiday?"  He made it a point to not wear anything green on the holiday - and even threatened to punch anyone who "pinched" him for not doing so.

Regards,
J. Alec West