Happy St. Patrick’s Day…or Happy Snakes Day…or Happy Luck of the Irish Day…or some friends of mine call it, Happy Guinness Day!  It’s a day that seems to be really tricky for a lot of Pagans.  Should I celebrate it? Why shouldn’t I celebrate it?  What about if I just use it as a day to honor my Irish ancestry?  How about we just call it a day for drinking because we all know that most people aren’t actually honoring a dead saint today; would that be OK?  I think that ultimately it should be something you decide on because you honestly feel one way or another about the holiday and not just because everyone else does it that way.

I personally have a feeling of being torn about the holiday.  I’m not terribly Irish; the amount of Irish blood that I have is so small that it isn’t worth even counting though my Mom tells me that I’ve got to be about an 1/8 Irish.  To me that’s not a lot in comparison to my Italian and German heritage. But my whole life I’ve had a strong connection to all things Irish.  When I first got started in the Craft I never even gave a consideration to any Gods or Goddesses that weren’t Irish or Celtic in nature.  It wasn’t until years later while exploring Asatru that I developed a strong connection to the Norse pantheon and reconnected to my Germanic blood.  My love of all things Irish have always had me honoring St. Patrick’s Day more as a day of Irish heritage than anything else.  I find that this is how a lot of Pagan’s look at the day but then there are those that wont even acknowledge it or who look at it as something like All Snakes Day.

St. Patrick’s Day is largely a day that honors the conversion of Ireland from it’s native Pagan beliefs to Christianity.  However, like many holidays, it’s gained a largely secular but there are still many who are affiliated with the church, especially in Ireland, who consider it a day of obligation and who use it as a day to reflect on and honor their faith.  In America it’s largely a day where anyone people, Irish or not, wear green and drink a lot of beer or whiskey.  But there are others who see it as a day that is essentially honoring the destruction of the Pagan traditions in Ireland and the assimilation of it’s people into the church.

When people talk about the “snakes” that were driven from Ireland by St. Patrick it’s the Druids and the Pagans who are those “snakes”.  Though Patrick’s hardcore evangelizing many people gave in to the pressure and converted to the new faith and those who didn’t were “driven away”, largely either going underground with their traditions and practices or leaving the country all together for fear of what would happen to them to remain Pagan in an newly Christianized country.

So who was St. Patrick?  There is a theory that some historians and researchers go with that was first presented in 1942 that suggests there were actual two different people that make up the St. Patrick that we refer to today.  This isn’t a largely accepted theory though, so we’ll look at him as the single figure born as Patricius Magonus Sucatus.   He was born in 387 in what is now Scotland.  During a raid in his village when he was around 14 or 15 he and a number of others were taken captive.  Patrick was taken to Ireland and was put to work herding and caring for sheep.  It wash here that he learned about the Druids and their practices.  In later writings of his he said that  he hadn’t found the “true God” until the time he spent there where he turned to prayer to comfort him. He would later go on to write that he found himself filled with peace and “the love of God and his fear” and that this sustained him during this time. Some who have written stories about his time in captivity have said it were Druids themselves that had enslaved him, but one has to wonder if this is possibly a case of history being written by the victors.

Around the age of 35 he escaped after claiming to have had a dream where God came to him telling him to leave Ireland via the coast.  Following the advice from this dream he fled and headed to the harbor where a ship was preparing to leave.  At first he was refused passage.  Patrick turned away and prayed silently to God to help him if this is what he meant for him to do from the message in his dream.  As he was preparing to walk away the sailors called him back and after 3 days with the sailors, who he convinced to turn to God, he arrived in Gaul where he reunited with his family.  Here he studied for the priesthood and became consecrated in 432.

Soon after he had another dream where he saw the people of Ireland asking him to return to them. He arrived in Ireland on March 25, 433 and began preaching the Gospel.  Those who converted became his first disciples who would go on to help him spread his message and convert others.  The influence that Patrick had was so great that it is said he that he was able to convert a King and all of their kingdom.  He spent years converting people and preaching the Gospel through Ireland.  He spent much of this time traveling the country and living a very modest life, almost to the point of being in poverty.  The years of travel and tough living conditions are believed to be what lead to his death on March 17, 461.  Of course, if the dates that have been suggested through history are accurate, he would have been in his late 60s and in those days that would have been quite a long life.

Today we often make it a day for shamrocks and whiskey, two things that are attributed to the day because of Patrick. He used the shamrock to explain the trinity to people he was preaching to, though this was something that  was suggested in later histories of him.  A legend of Patrick explains the whiskey connection (sort of…depending on how much of it you believe).  While traveling Patrick stopped along the way at an inn and was served a class of whiskey that was only half full but was charged the full price.  Patrick explained to the inn keeper that there was a devil residing in the basement of his inn and that unless he gave up is dishonest ways, like serving half glasses of drink while charging full price, that the devil would remain and cause problems in his establishment.  Patrick came back to the same inn on another trip and found that the inn keeper was filling people’s glasses to the brim and that the inn was overflowing with happy customers.  It is said that Patrick declared from this day forth that everyone should have a drop of whiskey on his feast day.

Drinking and feasting was always a part of the celebrations of a saint’s day but since St. Patrick’s fell in the time of Lent the church would make a small exception.  The restrictions of Lent would be loosened for this one day so people could drink and feast after their church obligations were over and but then they were expected to return to their fasting on the next day.

This can all explain the reason why so many modern day Pagans have decided not to celebrate the day and instead to do things like specifically look to and honor the Druids who Patrick “drove away”.  I have to admit I’m conflicted on the issue.  I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is what was going on and what actually happened.  Or at least that’s what we believe happened; we believe that Patrick and his disciple were forceful and aggressive with their evangelizing, to the point of harassment, and that the Pagans and Druids were forced to convert and abandon their cultural beliefs and practices.  I tend to think this might be too simple of an answer,.

Either way, how we celebrate the day now is largely removed from any of this.  Many Pagans find it a day to really honor reviving the Pagan traditions, especially those of the Celtic traditions while others use it as a day to share information about exactly who or what the snakes in Ireland were that were driven away.  I don’t think we need to get so up in arms about; there are a lot of people that I’ve seen get offended by the day saying that it’s the celebration of someone that tried to kill the Celtic and Druid traditions, but I think that might be crossing the line a bit.  It’s not as though there weren’t other saints that did similar things, it just turned out that Patrick had a really good sense of the PR involved in what he was doing.

So I say have a Guinness, celebrate the Druids, honor being a snake in the eyes of the church, but let others celebrate the day in the way they wish without forcing your ideas of it on them.