Rediscovering St Patrick…
Continuing with our monthly gatherings in different areas we will be gathering in Dublin on the evening of March 17th at 7p.m at Immanuel Church. We believe it is significant to be present and praying in the city centre on a day where hundreds of thousands come from all over the world to celebrate in Dublin and we would love to see you there ! What if ?
I heard recently that when they did genetic testing on a sample of Irish people they found no Viking blood. Which is surprising considering that seems to be everyone’s excuse for our fiery temperament. They found out that the Vikings actually kept to themselves, taking all the best looking Celts back to Scandinavia. At this point things start to make sense, why Norwegians are so hot and the Irish are, shall we say, less so. It got me thinking once again of the centuries of pillaging that have gone on in Ireland. When everyone and their mother seemed to wind up coming to the shores of Eire at some to do their plundering it built a resolve in the Irish. What did they have if all their riches and good-looking women kept getting robbed? Plus it rained on them all the time and the entire west part of the country, though beautiful, can pretty much only grow potatoes.
The common answer is they learned to joke and they learned to drink. But there’s more to it than that. When St Patrick came to Ireland and started training monks he made sure they were teachers and artisans. The newly converted and ordained monks set up monasteries all over the country which became hubs for learning, prayer, worship and miracles as well as being working farms and guilds. When the Roman Empire was going up in smoke the monasteries held on to European literature, history and philosophy so that civilization wouldn’t get lost. In the 1500 years since then, through wars, famine and oppression the Irish have sent out more missionaries, artists and writers than any other small country. When the British wouldn’t let them talk about Ireland as it’s own country they sung allegorical songs, when they weren’t allowed teach their children their history they made up stories, and when they had no money for a drink they made one out of potato skins. The last one may not have been the most beneficial thing, especially since the drink they made Poitín is obscenely strong. The point is though, that there was always a sense of ingenuity. I like to think the Irish were more wily than wild. Passionate yes, but nothing like the simians they were made out to be.
When I look at all the good came out of Patrick’s time in Ireland I think about how he must have instilled such a sense of value in the people, something that’s maybe got lost along the way. When he told them that, instead of their angry druidic gods, that the true God loved and valued them I can’t imagine that not changing every part of life.
So on Lá Fhéile Pádraig, the day when everyone gets so drunk they really do see leprechauns, I’m asking God to unlock the treasure chest of Ireland, to wake up the dry bones. We have more to offer the world than Riverdance, Guinness and Bono, they are the tip of the iceberg of creativity and influence. When J.F.K visited he said:
‘Ireland has already set an example and a standard for other small nations to follow. This has never been a rich or powerful country, and yet, since the earliest times, its influence on the world has been rich and powerful. No larger nation did more to keep Christianity and Western culture alive in their darkest centuries. No larger nation did more to spark the cause of independence in America, indeed, around the world. And no larger nation ever provided the world with more literary and artistic genius.’
They played the old Irish hymn ‘Be Thou My Vision’ in Irish at my church on Sunday and the title ‘as gaeilge’ is bí thusa i mo shúile, be in my eyes. I feel like Patrick must have prayed that for the Irish, Lord give them vision so they can see you and through that themselves, so they can see what solutions you have to the problems around them, so they can create, so they can affect the world.
Hazel Mulhare