Thursday, March 17, 2011

Happy Irish Day

Saint Patrick's Day is no longer the day we celebrate the man who supposedly drove all of the snakes out of Ireland. It hasn't been for a long time now, which I think is for the best. I can get behind being stereotypically Irish for a day. It's a good excuse to have a pint of Guinness. I'd be baking soda bread now if it wasn't for a cold I have that's sapping my will to do anything meaningful in the kitchen.

I used to be entirely pro-Saint Patrick's Day, but as a lover of old myths and folk tales, it's hard not to feel a little tinge of bitterness today. I read a book some years ago that claimed that Saint Patrick actively stamped out a good deal of the old Celtic legends. I wish I could find more outside of this book (which was "Hero Tales of Ireland" by one Jeremiah Curtin) but given the saint's attempt to spread Christianity and undermine Druidism in Ireland, it doesn't seem unlikely that an active effort to radically alter or eliminate said tales was part of his gig there.

Well, I have my pint. And I'll probably tell myself I'll get a shamrock shake at some point today and never get around to it, just like every Saint Patrick's Day I can remember for the past ten years.

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