(Host) Writer and commentator Deborah Doyle-Schechtman has been thinking
about her Irish heritage – and some of the misconceptions commonly held
regarding St. Patrick’s Day.
(Doyle-Schechtman) It’s said that
on St. Patrick’s Day everyone is Irish, meaning that for many it’s more
of an aspiration than a reality. In fact, Ireland’s patron saint wasn’t
Irish. He was born in Roman Britain at the end of the 4th century. He
was captured as a teenager by the Irish and taken to Ireland where he
herded sheep. By his own admission, he wasn’t religious as a kid, but
he started to pray during his 6 years of captivity.
Then one night God
told him there was a ship that would take him home, and he needed to
head to the coast to catch it. He hiked the 200 miles, found the ship
and returned to Britain. There he studied for the priesthood, and after
ministering in his native country for a while, God told him to return
to Ireland to convert the druids and the pagans. He was made a bishop,
given the name Patrick, and did just as he was bid until his death
several decades later, on March 17, 461.
That St. Patrick wasn’t
really Irish reminded me of other misconceptions commonly held
regarding the famous saint’s feast day. And as it happens, there’re
quite a few.
First, there’s the whole green thing. Truth be
told, the color originally associated with St. Patrick is blue. There’s
even a particular shade called St. Patrick’s Blue, which appears on the
President of Ireland’s standard.
The use of the color green is in fact
politically based. True, St. Patrick employed the shamrock, initially a
pagan symbol of spring, to illustrate the concept of the Trinity, but
more to the point, supporters of an Independent Irish Republic wore
shamrocks on their hats during the 1798 Rebellion as an emblem of
solidarity. If caught, the wearer was hanged, as is vividly described
in the street song of the period called Wearin’ of the Green. The
popular phrase Erin Go Bragh, or Ireland Forever, is another relic of
those turbulent times.
It’s also a myth that Saint Patrick
drove the snakes out of Ireland, because snakes were never native to the
island, and thus there was nary a one to cast out.
Until
relatively recently, there were no formal processions in Ireland to
celebrate St. Patrick, either. Such parades are an Irish-American
creation, one that began here during our Colonial Period. Irish
immigrants gleaned corned beef and cabbage from their Jewish neighbors
in the New York tenements of the mid-1800s. Green beer is also an
American concoction.
As for the luck of the Irish, well, all I
can say is that my ancestors had at least as many superstitions designed
to keep adversity at bay as to assure good fortune.
Finally, the
phrase ‘Top o’ the mornin” was never uttered on the Emerald Isle by
anyone born there, but ‘Never bolt the door with a boiled carrot’
certainly was.
So Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone. "May your
blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow, and may trouble avoid you
wherever you go."
(Tag) Deborah Doyle-Schechtman is a writer who
divides her time between the Upper Valley and Northeast Kingdom. You can
find more VPR commentaries at VPR-dot-net.