Saint Patrick died on March 17th, and so Hibernophiles, lovers of Irish tradition, around the world raise their glasses, and remember the man that banished the snakes of human sacrifice and slavery from Ireland.
We are a diaspora over the world, and Ireland is a cherished place to us. May all Irish learn to be learnéd in ár ndúchais, owr nookush, our heritage, arís, areesh, again, so that green Ireland will not be severed from its roots. Éireann go Brách, Of Ireland forever.
It's easy to confuse the Irish cultural renaissance with environmentalism, in a landscape that reads--in dinnshenchas--like a manuscript, and where the most beautiful west is the Gaeltacht.
Saint Patrick's Day is an annual wake for the pater familia. In the death of old man winter, there is the regeneration of Spring, of life in the ground and consciousness in the mind. The wake is just that, an awakening.
Patrick is the Pater with crozier, (confused by some as Paddy with night stick), the shepherd to the human animal. He is an archetype, within, and we need not defer our spiritual authority as individuals to role-players imitating him. In his example, we have a bodhisattva that has tamed his own awful propensities, such as that which allows human sacrifice or exploitation. The lesson is personal and can be undertaken like a hero on the spiritually heroic path. He is the consumate Irish liberator, the man all great Irishmen have had to identify with on some mystical level of masculinity and dignity.
Saint Patrick was an abolitionist, a peace-maker and a writer who convinced people to exalt more enlightened qualities in themselves.
Many raise their glass to Saint Patrick through green lens glasses. Green is the biosphere. Green are the trees faoi bláth, blooming. In green, Saint Patrick is remembered, like we picture the Spring ahead of us, winter done, the season of Imbolc ending, and Spring beginning at the equinox just a few days after the wake of Pádraig.
Let us regenerate our cultúr with the Spring: is my toast for Lá Fhéile Pádraig 2010. Sláinte.
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