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Saint Patrick
Little is known of Patrick’s early life, though we know he was born in Roman Britain in the fifth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father was a deacon in the Church, like his father before him. At the age of sixteen he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave. It is believed he was held somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, possibly Mayo, but the exact location is unknown. According to his Confession, he was told by God in a dream to flee from captivity to the coast, where he would board a ship and return to Britain. Upon returning, he quickly joined the Church in Auxerre in Gaul and studied to be a priest. In 432, he again says that he was called back to Ireland, though as a bishop, to save the Irish, and indeed he was successful at this, focusing on converting royalty and aristocracy as well as the poor. Irish folklore tells that one of his teaching methods included using the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) to the Irish people.
After nearly thirty years of teaching and spreading God’s word he died on 17 March, 461 AD, and was buried at Downpatrick, so tradition says. Although there were other more successful missions to Ireland from Rome, Patrick endured as the principal champion of Irish Christianity and is held in esteem in the Irish Church.
On a per-capita basis, Ireland has more writers and artists than any other nation in the world. Some of the greatest writers of the English language are Irishmen.
George Bernard Shaw
James Joyce
Oscar Wilde
All the more remarkable, when you consider their native language was Gaelic . . . The writer of the world’s most pornographic novel is an Irishman:
J.P. Donleavy
The great actor Peter O'Toole comes from Galway, Ireland
Irishmen have served honorably in every army on the face of the Earth. Irish soldiers have distinguished themselves in battle in every war from the time the Romans first tried to land on their shores, to this very day. ‘Wild Geese’ was the name given to Irish professional soldiers who dreamt of returning to Ireland, where military skills perfected on foreign fields would be employed against English occupiers: At Saratoga, in New York’s Hudson River valley, rebellious Americans dealt a humiliating defeat to the British Army in October 1777. The American hero was Timothy Murphy, the sharp shooting son of Irish immigrants who picked off two key British officers during the battle.
Among the British prisoners was Sgt Roger Lamb from Dublin, who observed his fellow captives conversing with the Americans across a shallow river. In his memoirs, Lamb recalled how an Irish soldier named Maguire, with the British 9th Regiment of Foot, recognised a familiar voice on the opposite bank. “He suddenly darted like lightning from his companions, and resolutely plunged into the stream. At the very same moment, one of the American soldiers, seized with a similar impulse, resolutely dashed into the water from the opposite shore.” Astonished spectators on both banks watched the men embrace tearfully in mid-stream. The accompanying cries of “my dear brother” soon cleared up the mystery. “One”, wrote Lamb, “was in the British and the other in the American service, totally ignorant until that hour that they were engaged in hostile combat against each other’s life.”
Soldiers of the 69th New York of the Irish Brigade, circa 1863
Company-Sergeant-Major Martin Doyle V.C., M.M. of the Royal Munster Fusiliers was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for bravery in combat, while fighting against the Germans in France, 1918.
Y’all know I’m three-quarters Irish, right? – Sean Linnane
Linnane – the Gaelic version of the name I was born under – comes from the western part of Ireland known as Connaucht – the counties of Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo – home to the wild, hauntingly beautiful scenery of the Connemara.
The Cliffs of Moher
“The reason why God invented whiskey was to keep the Irish from conquering the World.”
-Unknown truism
Independent // Mar 17, 2010 at 11:37 am
Sean, as a 2nd generation Irish-American, this is the day I also remember the plight of those poor Irish sods who suffered and died under the 18-19th C Great Famines and we lost maybe 1.5m Irish between 1845-52 and another 1.25m to 1.5m left that great green land in search of food and work.
For them, this is the day that I remind any Englishmen I know of their horrible role in that tragedy which rivals the Jewish holocaust some 90 yrs later.
Today’s the day to hoist a pint and kick some bloody Brit in his fat royal arse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8FpXnQnJ_M
JeninCT // Mar 17, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Thanks Sean! Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
ottovbvs // Mar 17, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Independent // Mar 17, 2010 at 11:37 am
“Today’s the day to hoist a pint and kick some bloody Brit in his fat royal arse.”
……Contributed to NORAID did you?
Independent // Mar 17, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Not at all. Never even been to the Black Rose in Boston. Not a fan of the IRA or the splinter groups.
My seething dislike for the English predates those modern day applicances.
Or don’t you read?
ottovbvs // Mar 17, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Independent // Mar 17, 2010 at 2:33 pm
“My seething dislike for the English predates those modern day applicances.”
……ahhh you’ve always been an angry man when it comes to the Brits
sinz54 // Mar 17, 2010 at 6:28 pm
ottovbs: you’ve always been an angry man when it comes to the Brits
Ahhh, the whole world hated the Brits.
Remember the Boston Massacre!
Remember the War of 1812!
Remember the Boer War!
Remember India!
Remember Malaya!
Remember Dresden!
ottovbvs // Mar 17, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Sinz “Ahhh, the whole world hated the Brits.”
……This really the best you can come up with……those nice friendly Boers, that nice Mr Ghandi, those lovely Nazis……and Malaya? the Brits were never really unpopular in Malaya, quite the contrary from my experience of that country, other than with a communist minority that with backing from China tried to take over the country in the late forties and failed because of what’s probably been the only successful counter insurgency war since 1945 where the Brits won the hearts and minds of ordinary Malaysians.
Independent // Mar 17, 2010 at 8:08 pm
otto, it isn’t the Brits I have a problem with… the Welsh and Scots are a great people who, too, have long suffered under the English’s bloody butchers apron.
My animus is toward the English. The royals. The gentried landowners. They were never tried for Crimes Against Humanity in their collective genocide of the Irish… we ought to get started on that trial tomorrow morning… before tea.
We won’t, of course; but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
Sean Linnane // Mar 17, 2010 at 8:51 pm
A lot more than just the Royals – the Vikings hacked, raped & rampaged their way across Ireland, and after them the Normans. Oliver Cromwell was responsible for a lot of the bloodletting in Ireland, and he was not Royal.
SFTor1 // Mar 18, 2010 at 2:33 am
Careful about the Vikings there, Sean. They did some hacking, no question, but so did everybody else. The Vikings got assimilated into the Irish population, that ought to speak volumes.
SFTor1 // Mar 18, 2010 at 2:33 am
Help! I’m turning into a Viking apologist!
andydp // Mar 18, 2010 at 8:35 am
Being an “immigrant” into New York I would like to add New York provided about 25% of the Union Forces during the Civil War. Until the opening of the NY State Military Museum in Saratoga NY, you would be hard pressed to find any evidence of this in the main NY State Museum.
A sad situation due to the budget crunch is the imminent “demise” of the regimental flags that are stored at the NY State Capitol. The sad part is the infrastructure for repair is there but they need money to continue restoration of these rare artifacts for which brave men died in their defense.
I raise my glass to the Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment (The Irish Brigade) a unit still on active service in the NY Army National Guard. The 69th has been in every conflict since the Civil War and is the one of the highest decorated units in the US Army: 63 battle rings, 28 campaign streamers, and 7 Medals of Honor to its credit. Not to mention the movie starring Jimmy Cagney and Pat O’Brien “The Fighting 69th”.
From http://www.69thnewyork.com : They quickly gained a reputation for courage, discipline and ferocity in the face of the enemy. An English war correspondent, who had little use for the Irish, wrote; “Whenever anything absurd, forlorn or desperate was to be attempted, the Irish Brigade was called upon”. Even the Confederates acknowledged their bravery. It was General Lee who christened the First Regiment “The Fighting 69th”. At the Battle of Malvern Hill, when Stonewall Jackson saw the 69th advancing against him, he remarked in frustration; “Here come those d— green flags again!”
Since I’m the son of Italian Immigrants I would like to mention that St Patrick was Italian. My mother used to tell me the name Patrick is derived from the Latin for patrician (Noble). My half Irish wife tells me I’m full of it, My Irish MIL (nee Sullivan) is quiet on the issue. I think I’ll just have a beer.
Independent // Mar 18, 2010 at 9:33 am
andyDP, your Mom was mostly right. Patrick was born in Scotland, of Roman –not Italian– parents. They were patricians. He was born in the area of Kilpatrick(Dumbarton) Scotland… that’s where the name arises.
To call him Italian or his parents would be an injustice to the great Roman tradition and just wrong. Italy, at St Paddie’s time, was mostly a term used by Greeks to describe the southern most portion of the area now known as Italy. That area had a bull as it’s primary symbol and the bull goaring the Roman wolf’s underbelly was that area’s defiant stand against the Romans.
sinz54 // Mar 18, 2010 at 9:56 am
ottovbs: This really the best you can come up with
No, I was just warming up.
It says much about humanity’s basic urge to be ruled by dynasties that Teddy Kennedy came anywhere near being elected president in 1980….
For years Kennedy was the bang-drummer-in-chief for brainless Irish-American IRA sympathisers, dimwits who shouted “troops out of Dublin!” and sang maudlin songs from the comfort of Boston and New York, giving money for strangers 3,000 miles away to murder their neighbours.
For despite the pseudo-Marxist justifications the IRA used, which was obviously lapped up by useful idiots on both sides of the Irish Sea and across the Atlantic, their goal was always ethnic cleansing against their neighbours, the people who Americans still call “the Scots-Irish”.
Kennedy himself said that Ulster Protestants “should be given a decent opportunity to go back to Britain”, without in any way suggesting he would give Boston back to the Indians (or the English-Americans, for that matter) and return to Co. Wexford. He compared Britain’s presence in Ulster with America’s in Vietnam, and later forced Jimmy Carter to ban arm sales to the RUC, blackening the name of that tirelessly heroic band of men, each one of them worth a thousand spoiled Ivy League playboys.
Kennedy spoke out against violence in Northern Ireland while cosying up to IRA terrorists, the cause of the violence, ensuring Gerry Adams could visit the States in 1996 and celebrate that great festival of plastic patriotism and falseness, the American St Patrick’s Day Festival. He only later distanced himself from Sinn Fein/IRA after their goons murdered Robert McCartney and the American public woke up to the reality of “the boys”.
It’s bad manners to speak ill of the dead, before his family have got the chance to bury their loved one, but it cannot go forgotten.
http://tinyurl.com/m77dn3
I live in MA. Lots of Irish-Americans here in the Boston area. Support for NORAID was strong, even among local politicians like Ted Kennedy. Support for Britain was not.