Good Saint Patrick
Who in this wide world has not heard of Saint Patrick? And who is not Irish on the good saint’s feast day of March 17th?
The good natured welcome in this season is so typical of Irish hospitality. And the irony of a day of excesses in the name of a humble and austere man of faith; born Patricius and immortalized as Saint Patrick. Henry D Spalding, the author of a number of books on humor and folklore, wrote: The treatment of sacred objects by Irish wits differs from that of most Catholic countries. Saint Patrick is hardly regarded as a conventional saint by Irish humorists… Only those who are in the closest intimacy with objects venture to treat them familiarly, and the Irish find it easy to joke, without disrespect, of that which is dearest to them. However, only an Irish-American could ever have conceived the ideas of Saint Patrick as an editor of Prayboy magazine.
The Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Phyllis McGinley, gave us a narrative that conveys the high points of Patrick’s legacy summed up in his “gift of gab.”
PATRICK the MISSIONER
Saint Patrick was a preacher
With honey in his throat.
They say that he could charm away
The miser’s dearest pence;
Could coax a feathered creature
To leave her nesting note
And fly from many a farm away
To drink his eloquence.
No Irishman was Patrick
According to the story.
The speech of Britain clung to him
(Or maybe it was Wales).
But ah, for curving rhet’ric,
Angelic oratory,
What man could match a tongue to him
Among the clashing Gaels!
Let Patrick meet a Pagan
In Antrim or Wicklow,
He’d talk to him so reachingly,
So vehement would pray,
That Cul or Neall or Reagan
Would fling aside his bow
And beg the saint beseechingly
To christen him that day.
He won the Necromancers,
The bards, the country herds.
Chief Aengus rose and went with him
To bear his staff and bowl.
For such were all his answers
To disputatious words,
Who’d parry argument with him
Would end a shriven soul.
The angry Druids muttered
A curse upon his prayers.
They sought a spell for shattering
The marvels he had done.
But Patrick merely uttered
A better spell than theirs
And sent the Druids scattering
Like mist before the sun.
They vanished like the haze on
The plume of the fountain.
But still their scaly votaries
Were venomous at hand.
So three nights and days on
Tara’s stony mountain
He thundered till those coteries
Of serpents fled the land.
Grown old but little meeker
At length he took his rest.
And centuries have listened, dumb,
To tales of his renown.
For Ireland loves a speaker,
So loves Saint Patrick best:
The only man in Christendom
Has talked the Irish down.
We hope you’ll join us at The Celtic Ranch for a little celebration, and that’s no blarney! From Celtic crosses to pub socks, flashing shamrocks and leprechauns, we’ve got you covered. Every color is green and everyone is Irish this week in Weston. Remember -- "The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself."
Lori McAlister,
Wrangler of Cultural Affairs
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