Today, March 20, 2021 is the Vernal Equinox. The call of the spring equinox is ancient and primal. For millennia, humankind has tracked the sun and the seasons and celebrated the promise of renewal and rebirth by joining together outdoors. A good day to discuss St. Patrick, the main patron saint of the Irish, who allegedly died on March 17th, sometime in the fifth century.
St. Patrick's Day was observed as a rather serious and religious day in Ireland and the celebrations as we know them today really took off in America, where the Irish, tired of being discriminated against and realizing they had strength in numbers turned it into a glorious day for the "wearin' o' the green", and the gettin' of the inebriated. That tradition was more fun and therefore spread around the world
Having a certain amount of Irish extraction in my forbearers, I went along with the tradition wishing people Happy St Patrick's Day and rather than consume green beer, collected Irish jokes, some of which can be printed on a public page.
I know the usual stuff about St Patrick, how he was born to wealthy Christian Roman parents in Wales, was kidnapped and spent several miserable years in Ireland, escaped, went to France and became a priest then returned to Ireland bringing them Christianity. He incorporated the sun which the Irish worshipped into the cross, creating the Celtic Cross, taught the Holy Trinity using the Shamrock, and of course, drove the snakes out of Ireland.
Except this year, I got a bit of a rude awakening from my FB and Blogger friend in Texas, Jackiesue, aka Yellow Dog Granny. Jackiesue is an avowed Pagan who worships The Goddess. I never asked which one as there are several to choose from but personally I'd pick Freya, the Norse goddess of cats, fertility, war, love, sex, beauty, magic and in some ways death. That description fits Jackiesue to a T.
Anyway, Jackiesue informed me that St Patrick was a murderous SOB who Christianized Ireland by killing off the Druids who revered snakes as part of the circle of life, and any other pagans who refused to convert. I ran into this on a number of other people's St Patrick's Day Posts and began to wonder what rock I had been under all these years. The best descriptor was "Happy “another Christian celebrated for mass slaughter of people with other beliefs” day! Let’s get drunk!
Everything else is conjecture and legend as there were no written records. The Irish to that time depended on oral history. Hagiographies of St Patrick began to be written in the seventh century by which time he was already venerated as a saint.
First off, St Patrick was not the first Christian missionary in Ireland, and while he did convert many, paganism was never really eliminated but thrived until the fourteenth century and still exists today.
Second, there never were snakes in Ireland when it was inhabited by humans. The ice killed them all. So what did St Patrick do to the 'snakes' i.e. the Druids and other pagans? Today, Christians assert that St. Patrick only banished a sacrificial Druid religion, an expulsion symbolically represented by the banishment of snakes. Pagans, on the other hand, claim that St. Patrick forced Christian conversion with the threat of violence, and actually killed many Druid priests who refused to convert.
One side glorifies St. Patrick as a
peaceful man doing the Lord’s peaceful work while demonizing a corrupt Druid
culture by accusing it of practicing child sacrifice, and the other side
glorifies Druid culture as living in innocent harmony with nature while
demonizing St. Patrick by accusing him of being a violent missionary. (Where have we heard this stuff before?)
Here is one perspective from the Pagan side and note she does not mention murder of pagans. My surname is Mulkieran. That surname is associated with the parish of Clonkennkerrill near the small modern village of Gurteen, in Galway. It was first recorded in the early 11th Century, and other early recordings include Maelisa O’Mulkieran who died in 1197. My mother was a passionate genealogist, who traced our family farther back than that. So you might say that my Irish bonafides have been well established.
I mention this for no other reason than to be able to point
out that my perception of Saint Patrick when I was growing up was vastly
different from the popular secular view. My mother was a seventh generation
hereditary witch, from a long line of women who rejected the Christian
tradition of assuming the names of their husbands and kept her family name.
There’s not a hyphen among the seven women who preceded me, and each one of
them passed down the Pagan traditions which I hold dear today. Among these was
a distaste for Saint Patrick (to say the least – my grandmother would spit at
the mention of his name), who my family saw as a Christian invader, a
missionary who was instrumental in the subjugation of the Irish isle to the
Christian church (and who, worst of all, wasn’t even Irish).
The best source I found to refute the idea of a murderous St Patrick is Saint Patrick, Druids, Snakes, and Popular Myths. It looks at several perspectives and quotes backup references. I'm only going to copy a bit of it here but please read the whole thing.
For years now, several individuals have worked to debunk this idea as well. It seems the “snakes = Druids” metaphor is a relatively recent invention, as was the idea that Patrick “drove them out.” P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, a Celtic Reconstructionist Pagan (and scholar) who has extensively studied Irish myth and folklore, had this to say on the subject.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t true, and the hagiographies of St. Patrick did not include this particular “miracle” until quite late, relatively speaking (his earliest hagiographies are from the 7th century, whereas this incident doesn’t turn up in any of them until the 11th century). St. Patrick’s reputation as the one who Christianized Ireland is seriously over-rated and overstated, as there were others that came before him (and after him), and the process seemed to be well on its way at least a century before the “traditional” date given as his arrival, 432 CE, because Irish colonists (yes, you read that right!) in southern Wales, Cornwall, and elsewhere in Roman and sub-Roman Britain had already come into contact with Christians and carried the religion back with them when visiting home.”
His assertions are backed up by historian Ronald Hutton in his book “Blood & Mistletoe: The History of The Druids in Britain.”
“[Saint Patrick’s] letters do, however, strongly suggest that the importance of Druids in countering his missionary work was inflated in later centuries under the influence of biblical parallels, and that Patrick’s visit to Tara was given a pivotal importance that it never possessed – if it ever occurred at all – to suit later political preoccupations. […] The only appearances of Druids in documents attributed to Patrick himself occur in some that are generally thought to have been composed after his death.”
Being neither Green nor Orange but some other form of Irish Protestant heathen I will continue to appreciate Irish jokes and wish people Happy St Patrick's Day (but not you, Jackiesue nor anyone else who objects). And I will not celebrate anything orange!
Links to articles I sourced:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Patrick
https://www.history.com/topics/st-patricks-day/who-was-saint-patrick
https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/saint-patrick-saintly-criminal
https://blog.oup.com/2014/09/real-story-saint-patrick/
https://www.themarysue.com/the-truth-about-saint-patrick-snakes-pagans-and-more/
https://sojo.net/articles/saint-patrick-druids-and-snakes-truth-middle
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/saint-patrick-and-the-sna_b_503252
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/nov/15/st-patrick-banish-snakes-ireland
Colonists (whatever flavour) frequently brought (and bring) death and destruction with them. I suspect that is particularly true of evangelic colonists.
ReplyDeletePerception so often turns stories upside down and shakes them hard doesn't it?
How we view something depends on which side we are on, I guess. Always trying to give it the best spin for us.
DeleteThe Christian myth of their "benevolent" historical Christianization of Europe and other continents is being challenged today and seen for what it was. For many years now, I have no longer called March 17th "St Patrick's Day" but "Irish Heritage Day" instead in order to celebrate Irishness but divorce it from the destructive role of Christianity in Ireland.
ReplyDeleteI like Irish Heritage Day.
DeleteI despise all Christian missionaries with the exception of Mennonites who don't preach, just help. The others whether murderous or not and many were, were as you say highly destructive. Their main role was to soften up cultures so merchants could take advantage of them.
This was informative. When I was young people seemed to grasp at any notion of a holiday or special day and I remember wearing something green on that day. I now find the whole clamour of leprechauns and drinking and singing maudlin songs to be tiresome. I also find that people who think that they are witches are especially tiresome.
ReplyDeleteOther than acknowledging it, I never celebrated it per se. I love Irish music all year round, not just on March 17th. The Irish Rovers in their heyday were favourites of mine. As to witches, cant say as I know any and would be more afraid of those who accuse others of being witches than those who claim the title. It also depends on what powers they claim.
DeleteThis is interesting. Of course, Christian invasions of conversion have always been conducted through violence, or at least, the enforced destruction of cultures. You can see this history more recently with the Alaskan native conversion during the early 20th century.
ReplyDeletethe Ol'Buzzard
The enforced destruction of culture Even with minor coercion (residential schools for First Nations children) is the greatest failing of Christianity to put it mildly. The Alaskan natives were not alone. The peoples of the Americas have been suffering from Christianity since 1492.
DeleteAlexei Kondratiev (now passed on, alas), one of the most knowledgeable Celtic Reconstructionists I ever knew, said that the druids quietly converted and became Irish abbots. Conflict came later, when the Roman Church asserted its authority over the entirely-too-independent Irish abbots. So he agreed with Hutton, who is an excellent historian of modern British paganism.
ReplyDeleteSo let the Irish have St. Patrick.
Thank you so much. Kondratiev was quoted in that last article I linked to. As St Patrick was acting as a solitary missionary and not backed by any military force, it would be more likely that his life would be in danger, not those of the Druid Priests. I had to smile at the Druids becoming Abbots. Christians may have adopted pagan rituals when it suited them so why not vice versa?
DeleteI may have to read Hutton.
I had heard that St. Patrick's Day observances were quite a bit different in Ireland than they are here; but I didn't realize the extent of the theological divide. When two people with cellphone videos can view the same event and come up with diametrically opposed reports, I guess it's not surprising that we'll never know the truth about "St. Patrick".
ReplyDeleteOne thing we can be fairly sure of is that the miracles attributed to St Patrick were invented long after his death. I suspect he was a simple missionary using the tools and wiles at his disposal to convert the pagans. Father Brebeuf and Father Lacombe come to mind. They can be condemned for destroying native culture but certainly not violently. (That came later under Sir John A).
Deleteyes, Freya is my goddess. I'll stick to my version and do like Debra does ...celebrate Irish Heritage Day.
DeleteJackiesue, sounds good. Irish Heritage Day allows Papists, Protestants, and Pagans to celebrate the contributions the Irish have made in history, music, dance, literature, beer, whiskey and the populations of North America and many other countries.
DeleteI respect all the research you did on this.
ReplyDeleteIf Patrick could have killed off the Druids, I think he would given the deadly intolerance of the Catholic Church, but then the Druids were said to have their own elitist--and predatory--priesthood that was characterized by a contempt for human rights--including human sacrifice. As for your source from a "seventh generation" witch, it is my understanding that, in the Western World anyway, witches were driven out of existence, and that the modern pagan movement only goes back as far as the early 20th century. If this is true--and I think it is--there could be no hereditary chain, that is unless herbalists are mistaken for witches.
Druids were no angels either, that is for sure. And you are likely right about what the Catholic church would have done, given the ability to carry it out. As to seventh generation witches, what was her claim. I highly doubt that witches were driven out of existence. Most of those killed as witches were anything but. And it is the woman herself made the claim.
Delete"I highly doubt that witches were driven out of existence. Most of those killed as witches were anything but."
DeleteGiven the hellbentness of the church to destroy every vestige of paganism, particularly if it involved power in the hands of women, I would consider it more of a wonder if witches had not been either murdered or left so terrified that they gave up their craft (no one knows how many imagined withches--and their familiars--were murdered, but the number was at least in the hundreds of thousands). However, the question also comes up as to what, exactly, it means to be a witch. For my part, I assume it involves magic spells, but even that's a little vague. For instance, is throwing salt over ones shoulder a magic spell, or does a magic spell have to involve an incantation?
"And it is the woman herself made the claim."
Here's why I don't put much stock in her claim, not because I think she was dishonest, but for the following reasons: (1) I spent a few years seriously pursuing genealogical knowledge regarding my own family, and what I found was the the further back I went, the less evidence I had upon which to base my conclusions, so while I can't say that it's impossible to go back 800-years with a high degree of confidence, I would have to personally examine the evidence to believe it. (2) I have rarely met a genealogist in whose work I had confidence, the reason being that very few have any feel for what constitutes evidence, the result being that nearly all of the ones I know built their trees solely by copying data from other people's trees without examining it for themselves, somehow imagining that those "other people" knew what they were doing. For example, I have found tree after tree after tree that got my father's name wrong because of an error (census errors being extremely common) in the 1910 census. His name was right in every other census in which he ever appeared, but all of those people who screwed-up his name didn't bother to check, but appear to have copied incorrect information from a single other person's tree, after which other people copied that information from their trees, ad infinitum. (3) Even one mistake in tracing one's direct lineage (for example, getting an 18th century grandparent wrong) makes everything prior to that date wrong. (4) In the case of having witches in one's family tree, the only evidence would be word-of-mouth stories, and I have little confidence in those, especially when they paint one's ancestors in a flattering light. Peggy watches a program called "Antiques Roadshow" in which people bring antiques to appraisers. Many of these people come with flattering stories that in every case overrate the value and provenance of their antiques, and the appraisers then have the sad job of giving them factual information to show that they're wrong. For example, the antique owner might say that his antique was a gift from George Washington to the owner's ancestor, but if the antique was made in a style, or of a material, that was unknown in Washington's time, this cannot be true--not because anyone lied but because mistakes are made.
There were hundreds of thousands of women murdered as alleged witches some of whom had knowledge of herbal medicine for example. I have no idea what constitutes a witch and am quite content to take oral family history as close enough. We take oral histories from Indigenous people and can learn a great deal from them.
DeleteAs to genealogies, some are done right. I belong to a group called Hingston One Name Study. It has several thousand names on it and is carefully run by one person with input from hundreds of people from all over the English speaking world including my brother and cousin. All information provided is entered but unless it is confirmed eg church records, tombstones etc, it is marked as subject. And corrections are made all the time. There are a number of groups which are linked within the group but not yet to other groups. Sometimes a link is found and the groups are combined. It is quite interesting.
"All information provided is entered but unless it is confirmed eg church records, tombstones etc, it is marked as subject."
DeleteI assume you meant "suspect." Such an approach makes sense to me, although "unverified" would surely be a better label.
As for indigenous people's oral traditions, I really don't know to what extent they apply to genealogy, but from what I do know of them, the different tribes regularly contradict one another, particularly in their origin stories, yet those who accept oral tradition as fact strenuously object to them being questioned. As with religious people and Trumpians, they hold their beliefs as being superior to science, and this puts them on another planet to myself.
As for my last comment, I meant to say that MOST people who come to Antiques Roadshow with glowing stories about their antiques are wrong, there being those who have written documentation as well as those whose claims can't be proven or disproven.
Regarding witches, what I know of them came from my study of cats, cats being a subject that I have acquired quite a lot of information about. Millions of cats were killed during the Dark Ages and even later, there even being speculation that their deaths might have worsened the episodes of plague. As you wrote, many women--and a few men--were killed simply because they were eccentric or mentally ill, their guilt being based solely on the testimony of other poor smucks who would have told any lie in order to escape further torture. I don't think any of us can knowingly claim that we wouldn't have done the same.
Subject to confirmation. Yes, you are right about oral genealogy history. Much of what our grandfather told us turned out to be only partially true but it made a good story. I was sad to see the truth :):):). And oral traditions from Indigenous people are useful when confirmed by archaeological or DNA data and often provide clues. I did not mean them to be taken as 100% gospel all the time. Every group of people has their own founding myths. If you want to read something funny, in the book Paris 1919, Six months that Shaped the World, all the central and eastern countries showed up at the Peace Talks with territorial claims matching their greatest size in history. Something like 3 to 5 times the size of Europe.
Delete