St. Patrick's Day

A lot of things come to mind with St. Patrick's Day.

For one, my favorite Irish-American singer, Judy Garland, famous for Irish ditties like "Danny Boy", "A Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow", and "It's A Great Day For The Irish".

And it is a great day for the Irish. But how did it come about? What is its history?

St. Patrick was born in 387 into a wealthy family of Church deacons in Britain, then under the Roman Empire, in the province of Britannia. When he was sixteen years old, he was kidnapped and taken to Ireland to be a slave. Held captive on Ireland's west coast, he had a dream where God told him to escape to the east coast. He did, and once there, boarded a ship to Britain, where he joined the Church and studied to be a priest.

By 432 he was a bishop. He returned to Ireland to convert the polytheistic Irish to Christianity, using the shamrock as a symbol of the Christian Trinity to evangelize to the Irish. He did this for almost three decades until his death on March 17th in 461.

Saint Patrick is remembered as the primary champion of Irish Christianity and is a major figure in the history of the Irish Church. So his death has been commemorated ever since. The symbolism associated with St. Patrick, especially the shamrock, changed from blue to green over the years, but has grown into a holiday cultural celebration by Irish people all over the world.