Sláinte

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Its 9 am and bars have been open for three hours already.  I have not ventured out yet, but I think the first Guinness is not too far off.  Before beginning the full celebration I decided to do a little learning about the holiday I was drinking to celebrate.  Some where along the way as a kid I learned about St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland.  What else was there to this story?  Here's the cliff notes version of what I discovered over at Wikipedia. 

Saint Patrick was born in Roman Britain about AD 385, originally called Maewyn.  At the age of 16, he was sold into slavery by a group of Irish marauders that raided his village. During this time in captivity he became closer to Christianity and would later formally study under a bishop.  He then realized that his true calling in life was to convert pagans to Christians and spent the rest of his life in this service.  St. Patrick died on March 17th in 461 AD which explains the date of our modern day celebration.

So what about the snakes?  Apparently there never were any snakes in Ireland to begin with.  Historians believe that this might have been a metaphor for converting people to Christianity and away from their pagan ways.  St. Patrick was also rumored to have raised people from the dead.  I would assume that this was also not true but since I was not there I will still give him the benefit of the doubt that he was a great man.  He is a Saint after all.

Now that I have had my history lesson, I am off to enjoy the celebration.  Sláinte!

Public Service Announcement: Please remember that friends do not let friends drink green beer.  They instead laugh at people who think beer needs green food coloring.  They point and ridicule and cause green beer drinkers great humiliation.  Green beer just ain't natural.