WE WERE JUST WONDERING

For over 1000 years, we have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day on March 17^th, no matter what day of the week on which it falls.  Fortunately for us this year, it falls on Saturday . . .  or, tomorrow.

"The modern celebration of St. Patrick's Day really has almost nothing to do with the real man," said classics professor Philip Freeman of Luther College in Iowa.

Who was St. Pat?

Oddly enough, while much of St. Patrick's life is clouded by legend, there are some generally agreed-upon facts. Most historians agree that he was born in Scotland or Wales around 370 A.D. and that his given name was Maewyn Succat. His parents, Calpurnius and Conchessa, were Romans living in Britain;  and, as a teenager, Maewyn was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland, where he worked as a shepherd. It was during that time he began to have religious visions and dreams. In one dream, he was shown a way to escape from Ireland — by going to the coast and getting on a ship. After a perilous journey of hundreds of miles, he arrived at the coast and discovered a ship bound to Britain, eventually returning to Ireland where he continued to have visions even though he felt he felt unworthy to receive them.  After much deliberation within himself, he later journeyed to France where he entered a monastery and studied the priesthood, returning to Ireland around 432 AD as a Bishop.  Upon his death sometime between 461 AD and 490 AD, he is considered the Patron Saint of Ireland.

But, for those of us who are not Irish and don’t give a “wooden nickel” about the history and legend of St. Pat, all we really care about is every March 17^th, we get to wear some type of green and drink ourselves under the table with Irish Whiskey whether we like it or not.  However, many of us have never acquired a taste for Irish Whiskey so grabbing a glass of anything with alcohol will do us just fine.

Here’s an Irish drinking song for the road . . .

 

Bridgit O'Malley

Oh Bridgit O’Malley, you left my heart shaken

With a hopeless desolation, I’d have you to know

It’s the wonders of admiration your quiet face has taken

And your beauty will haunt me wherever I go.

The white moon above the pale sands, the pale stars above the thorn tree

Are cold beside my darling, but no purer than she

I gaze upon the cold moon till the stars drown in the warm sea

And the bright eyes of my darling are never on me.

My Sunday it is weary, my Sunday it is grey now

My heart is a cold thing, my heart is a stone

All joy is dead within me, my life has gone away now

For another has taken my love for his own.

The day it is approaching when we were to be married

And it’s rather I would die than live only to grieve

Oh meet me, my Darling, e’er the sun sets o’er the barley

And I’ll meet you there on the road to Drumslieve.

Oh Bridgit O’Malley, you’ve left my heart shaken

With a hopeless desolation, I’d have you to know

It’s the wonders of admiration your quiet face has taken

And your beauty will haunt me wherever I go.