How many people out there actually know the meaning of St Patricks day is If you take a guess?

Answer 1

St. Patrick was a Breton (modern Britain, probably near Wales), who was taken captive by marauders and sold into slavery and sent to Ireland. He was there for 14 years and finally escaped.

Years later, Patrick converted to Christianity and became a missionary, and went back to Ireland to convert the Irish because he had grown fond of them during his captivity.

He went around Ireland converting people, even kings (the story of the shamrock symbolizing the Holy Trinity is a popular story about him converting one of the Irish kings). It's interesting to point out that Ireland was the only contry that converted to Roman Catholicsm without the use of the sword.

During this time, there were many missionaries converting people in Ireland, but St. Patrick became the one that everyone knows because he's was able to write (a rare skill during those times), and wrote extensively about his life in journals.

Within about 50-100 years, almost all of Ireland converted from the Celtic religion to Christianity, though Christianity in Ireland still retained some pagan customs (even to this day.. Halloween for example, is the Celtic holiday Samhain).

Since Catholicism played such a huge influence on Irish Culture (even for nonCatholics), that's why it became a national holiday (and St. Patrick Ireland's patron saint). When the English trade policies created the Irish Holocaust (Famine) in the 1840s-50s, Irish left to live all over the world, and brought their holiday with them although it switched from being just a religious holiday where people go to church, to more of a nationalistic celebration where everything Irish is celebrated.

That's what St. Paddy represents.

Source(s):

History buff who's 100% Irish and proud of it (never known an Irishman who wasn't... :P)

Answer 2

The feast day of St. Patrick of Ireland.

Answer 3

I know that St. Patrick was from Ireland, and used the three-leaf clover as an illustration of the Holy Trinity as he helped bring Christianity to England.

Answer 4

Celebrates the life of St. Patrick. Who was an important part of Ireland. What he did. I have no idea.

Answer 5

If I'm not mistaken, St. Patrick was the person who brought Catholicism to Ireland. Although, I'm not sure why the holiday is on March 17.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

It was supposed to be the day St Patrick chased all of the snakes out of Ireland. There never were any snakes in Ireland! It's an island!!!!

Answer 8

Its irish

Answer 9

Patrick lit a fire in pagan 5th century Ireland, ushering Christianity into the country. Who was this man who became the patron saint of Ireland?

Ireland was a beautiful island shrouded in terrible darkness. Warlords and druids ruled the land. But across the sea in Britain, a teen-ager was poised to bring this nation to God.

"Patrick was born into a Christian family," says Philip Freeman, author of St. Patrick of Ireland. "His father was a deacon; his grandfather a priest. But Patrick says that from a n early age, he didn't have any serious interest in religion and that he was pratically an atheist when he was a teenager."

Around 400 A.D., Patrick was abducted from his village and thrown onto a slave ship headed for Ireland.

"He saw that as God chastising him, first of all," says Rev. Sean Brady. "That was the first view. He says we deserved what we got. We're carried at 16 years of age over to this foreign land."

Patrick was sold to a chieftain named Milchu. He spent six years tending his master's flocks on the slopes of the Slemish Mountain. Patrick recounts his time as a slave in his memoir entitled The Confession.

"He says, 'I prayed a hundred times in the day and almost as many at night,' " says Rev. Brady, the Roman Catholic Archbiship of Armagh and Primate of All of Ireland. "Through that experience of prayer and trial, he came to know another God -- God the Father, who was his protector. He came to know Jesus Christ in those sufferings, and he came to be united with Christ and he came to identify with Christ, and then of course, also the Holy Spirit."

One night during a time of prayer and fasting, Patrick wrote: "I heard in my sleep a voice saying to me: 'It is well that you fast. Soon you will go to your own country.' And again, after a short while, I heard a voice saying to me: 'See, your ship is ready.' "

Patrick escaped and traveled 200 miles cross country to the west coast. He found a ship ready to sail, but was refused passage. After a desperate prayer, he was allowed aboard.

Patrick eventually returned to his home and family. His experience of God's grace and provision solidified his faith. He began to study for the ministry.

Freeman says, "One night, he had a dream. Thee was a man who came from Ireland with a whole bunch of letters. And he opened up one of the letters and it said 'The Voice of the Irish.' And then he heard a voice coming out of this letter that said, 'Holy boy, please return to us. We need you.'"

Patrick struggled in his soul. Could he return to Ireland and minister to the same people who had enslaved him? Once again, he turned to God in prayer. He received the answer in a dream.

"He talks about how he, in this dream, is trying to pray and yet he can't," says Freeman. "So he hears a voice coming from inside of him which he realizes is the voice of God praying for him."

Patrick knew he had to go and convince his church that he was called to be a missionary to Ireland. He set sail in a small ship.

Patrick landed at the mouth of the Slaney River. When Patrick set foot on this shore, a new era dawned on this island.

"The Ireland of his day really wasn't much different from the Ireland of a few years ago here where we are sitting here at this moment," notes Most Reverend Dr. Robert Eames, Church of England Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. "It was an Ireland of tribalism, an Ireland of war, an Ireland of suspicion, an Ireland of violence and death. Here he came as a virtual stranger to this country of warring factions."

"They worshipped multiple gods of the sky and the earth and the water," says Freeman. "And so that was his first challenge: to convince the Irish that there was only one God and that his God really did love them."

Patrick came face to face with the chieftains and their druid priests. The showdown came on the morning of his first Easter in Ireland.

Monsignor Raymond Murray, parish priest of Cookstown in Northern Ireland explains further: "Part of the pagan worship of fall to spring, from the beginning of the summer, was that a fire was lit, and first of all, the fire on the hill of Tara and no other lights at all in Ireland."

This monastery on the hill of Slane is where Patrick -- in direct defiance of the high king of Tara -- lit a forbidden fire.

Notes Rev. Brady, "He was summoned before the king, and he explained that he wasn't a threat, because he was bringing the new light, the light of Christ, the Savior of the world, the Light of the world."

"The first light of Easter day was dawning. Patrick brought the hope of Easter day to Ireland," says Rev. Eames.

The weather can be absolutely brutal here in Ireland. But just imagine how it must've been for Patrick in the 5th century as he trekked across the countryside bringing the Gospel to the pagan Celts.

"People sometimes made fun of him because he said that God often gave him a message there was danger ahead," says Freeman. "But, he said, 'Laugh at me if you will. This is something that has protected me in Ireland.'"

Listen to Patrick's poem of faith and trust in God, "The Breastplate":

"Christ be within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ inquired, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger."

Myths and legends have grown up around this hero of Ireland.

As Monsignor Murray explains, it is sometimes difficult to describe the triune aspect of God. So, according to the story, to better illustrate the central teaching of the trinity, Patrick took a shamrock and pointed out the three leaves on it. Interestingly, it is only in Ireland that you find this shamrock. Therefore, the people believed.

"One of the famous legends, of course, is that Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland," says Irish historian Harold Calvert.

In fact, any snakes in Ireland had disappeared during the Ice Age.

"The legend about the driving of the snakes may, in fact, really symbolize the driving out of evil," says Calvert.

In 432 A.D., Patrick built a church on the site of the present day St. Patrick's Memorial Church in Saul -- the first ever Christian church in all of Ireland. It's considered the cradle of Irish Christianity.

"Preaching the Gospel, of course, baptizing converts, confirming them, appointing clergy," continues Calvert.

Patrick's ministry lasted 29 years. He baptized over 120,000 Irishmen and planted 300 churches.