As reprinted from the Gazette: https://www.gazettenet.com/Guest-columnist-Rosemary-Caine-45390709
Published: 3/16/2022
I wonder why St. Patrick’s Day has taken hold in a so-called secular culture that doesn’t really celebrate any saint other than Saint Patrick. I don’t think anybody in the U.S. knows or cares a lick about Saint Patrick, but they like a celebration that is otherwise benign. If swilling green beer can be considered benign?
The Burren Flora trio arrived in March 1972, of whom I was a member. We were recruited by then famous Tommy Makem to perform Irish music at the Harp and Bard in Norwood, Massachusetts. A rude awakening, even 50 years ago. It was unlike any St. Patrick’s Day we had ever experienced in Ireland. People were actually drinking green beer.
We noticed a comatose bald head had dropped onto a table with “kiss me I’m Irish” stuck to it — an invitation we declined. We thought, poor long deceased Saint Patrick would be spinning in his grave. Given the passage of time and Irish imagination, stories of him, where he came from and how he ascended to the place of patron saint of Ireland, are as lost as leprechauns.
There is little to connect the celebrating, drinking, eating, listening to and playing jigs and reels on March 17 with Saint Patrick or grand scale global Celtic capers. The story of the national apostle occurred through a series of personal mishaps. Born in Roman Britain, some believe he was born in France but we know for sure he was sent to Ireland as a slave. As smart as he was holy, somehow he outwitted his captors, escaped back to England but returned to Ireland.
The Irish then were pagans with the exciting practice of magic, changelings, spells, druids and demons. These devotions fueled by fiery imagination and heroism, their magic antics were grist for the storyteller’s store.
The epic Irish iliad, “The Táin,” was translated by Seamus Heaney. The “Cattle Raid of Cooley” is full of vengeance and female empowerment, doing battle with the gods. The Irish were perhaps ready for a saintly charismatic leader pushing them past superstition and toward a more romantic version of Christianity. Patrick used the three leaf shamrock to explain The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Thousands of converts who appeared on the Hill of Tara were persuaded of the possibility of three gods in one and so Christianity took hold in Ireland with a vengeance. Even after 10 years of CCD, I don’t quite yet get the Trinity. The nuns would have added, “you’re not meant to understand, it’s a mystery.”
St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland is still a holy day of obligation. Meaning the obligation puts you under the threat of mortal sin if you don’t attend Mass before heading off to the parade or the pub. No fun, mortal sins used to be confined to sins of the flesh or lust in the heart, eyeing your neighbor’s wife for instance, and off down you go. It is also a national holiday , a day free from school work and all work.
A kind of marker that spring was sprung, the daffodils in full bloom and fields full of shamrock. I believe modern pesticides have taken care of that proliferation of field greenery and now most shamrocks are cultivated in greenhouses. It was an exciting day for school children. We had the whole day off. The day before, we collected shamrock in bunches to be attached to St. Patrick’s Day badges. Some of my mother’s enthusiasm for greenery sprung up in my father’s suit lapel like half a hedge row.
My first memory of St. Patrick’s Day commercialism was shops filled with the badges, made out of green aluminum foil , miniature pictures of Patrick, harps and other Celtic insignia reminding us of our glorious heritage. The great saint himself presiding over an orgy of Lenten suspension and near gluttony. We could eat sweets chocolate and cake until we couldn’t. The pubs were packed , glasses clinking-up Saint Paddy.
It was a particularly happy day for me I was anticipating my birthday on March 22 when the party started all over again. My due date was actually St. Patrick’s Day so I was five days late. I have struggled with time management and punctuality my whole life. What’s my excuse? Had I been born on St. Patrick’s Day I would never be late for anything. My mother used to say, you’ll be late for your own funeral.
Isn’t it just a touch of Celtic cultural imperialism and irony that the formerly besieged Irish are force-feeding millions of people corn beef and cabbage on March 17, the kind we never had in Ireland that was invented in a New York Jewish deli.
Irish songs and dances raising the roof in pubs from Shanghai to Auckland, Doolin to Dublin.
How did the Irish pull that off in the name of a 5th century saint? Beats me!
Lá Feile Páraic Sona Duit.
Happy St Patrick’s Day!
Rosemary Caine is a native of Ireland, founder of Wilde Irish Women, a harpist and composer currently at work on Margaret Maher and the Celtification of Emily Dickinson. She lives in Greenfield.