ST PATRICK'S DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11027, 16 March 1914, Page 2

ST PATRICK'S DAY.

"IEI7TA OF OULD IRELAND." AN INTERESTING LEGEND. | (By MacGILLEAN RHUADH.) Ho is not much of an Irishman who does not honour the day'of his patron saint. Every good Irish Catholic assists at mass, if he can at all manage to do so, on " the seventeenth of old Ireland," and on that day ho will, too, if he can, wear a sprig of the shamrock 60 green in coat or hat. Pat is very patriotic. In the matter of celebrating St Patriok's Day ho is more so than either Englishman, Welshman or Scot. Of St George's Day one seldom hears anything. The newspapers sometimes tell us that a Welsh Society held a meeting on St David's Day, and the same authority let us know that the Scots were all alive on the evening of St Andrew's Day, and spent the time in goodfellowship and in listening to the songs of which their anthology is 69 rich., But Pat in his celebration is thoroughly in earnest and his celebration is soulful in the extreme. In this dominion wo are accustomed in our ignorance to call the shamrock a clover, and when we wear a trifolium sprig in compliment to an Irish friend, or to our best Irish girl, we fancy that a bit of ordinary clover will fill the bill. But it doesn't. Kindhearted Pat accepts the compliment because of the spirit in which he knows it is paid: but there is no substitute for him. It must be "the child of summer," as the Gaelic name of the "ehamrog" means, or nothing at all. And it is amazing how many plants of the shamrog are to-day flourishing in New Zealand, and how many private, people grow them quietly in some nice recess of their homes. No. The shamrock is not a clover, and if you don't want a-Donnybrook don't call it that when you are in convivial meeting with a gathering of sons of the Emerald Isle. The Irish peasant feels insulted when his shamrock is called a clover. His emblem's leaves are wee, tender and free from spot or blemish of any kind, and its stem is very slender and creeping. The glover, plants are large and blatant, and their whole appearance may be taken as impudent mockery of the humble yet highly honoured plant which is the pride and the darling of the Irish heart. How did it win its way to that loving heart of hearts? The story is old and has been repeated times without number; but just as the Welshmen tell their legends on St David's Day and the Scots' sing ■ their songs .when St Andrew's Day comes round—even if most of them know little about St Andrew" and care less—so it may hot be out of season to tell the story once again on the approach or the seventeenth of March.

St Patrick was a gentleman, And came of daoent people; _. In Dublin town he built, a church, And put upon't a steeplo. So says' the song by way of introduction, and then it goes on to give an Irish pedigree of (TShaughnessies and O'Gradies and so forth. It also/tells in vaudeville language how he cleared Ireland of all Vermin and reptiles, venomous and otherwise. Most people know the boy'B essay an " Snakes in" Ireland." It,was a record 'for"-both brevity and point, and brevity is thp eoul of wit. It was "There are no snakes in Ireland." The song was more diffuse: The frogs wont hop, the toads went flop, Slapdash into the water ( . The snakes committed suicide ■ . To ..save themselves from slaughter* But the music-hall songster was very much out. He evidently did. not know tliat Saint ( Pat waß a Scot, born on the bonnie"banks o' Clyde, and a native of the well-known Lowland town of Dumbarton. He has been claimed ,os of French birth, and that some spot near Boulogne has the honour of his nativity, but it is generally agreed that the much loved Saint of the Green Isle is of Scottish extraction, and that it was from that Celtic country that Ireland got its great apostle. A darling Irish girl once told the writer that there was only one thing she envied the Scots of, and that Was the nativity of her country's patron saint. That was no doubt very true, but her heart warmed to Scotland in another way soon after, for the writer played the pipes at her wedding to a grand young Highlander on the banks of the Tay. * * • « • Down south at Ashburton, in old Father Chastagnon's time, a concert was given on St Patrick's night in awl of the'funds of the Sisters of Mercy resident there. The concert was a great success, as was also the dance that followed. This, of course, was before the days of no-license,, and on such an occasion as this the police winked—winked hard. Some time after midnight things were jolly in one of the hotels; and the revellers, though anything but riotous, were argumentative. The subject was St Patrick's birthplace. Cork claimed hirn; Coj ; naught claimed him; even the now rebellious Ulster claimed him for Armagh; the landlord, a Scot, claimed him for Coupar Angus, and there were other claimants. Things M'ere becoming heated when an old Scot—a dyer from the local woollen factory—seHlai matters amid uproarious laughter. He said: "Look noo, lads. Ye're a' wrang. I ken whaur St Patrick was born, a id ye shud ken tae." (Dead sjlence and astonishment.) " "Where do you say he was born, Scottie?" Very solenu.^ - came the answer. "He was born at Kaiapoi!! 1" That ended the argument, and the Scot's glass was filled again to overflowing. ' * • •»■».'#

St Patrick's name, as given him by his parents, was Sukkat; he got tho name we "now know him by, and. all the Christian world knows him by, from Pope Celestin, when that ecclesiastical authority sent him out from Rome to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to the then pagan people of Ireland. No missionary ever carried on so successful a mission, or in such a peaceful manner. All Ireland adopted Christianity, • and that, too, without a drop of blood v being shed, or a single life lost in the warfare that usually attends such missions. It was in the course of his mission to the pagan Irish that he found a use for the shamrock as an illustration.

Here is the story as told by the writer of an article on the legend:— " Soon after Saint Patrick's landing in Ireland, the high King—the ardrigh —and his chieftains, hards, druids and followers were gathered together on the Hill of Tar a to hold high festival in honour of Baal, whom the Irish worshipped as the god of fire. A royal order had been issued, under which it was death to light a fire until the king gave command, and for several days every hearth in the country had been cold. In the midst of the festival a priest of Baal rushed into the presence of tho king with th& information that a. fire had been lighted that required instantaneous quenching, otherwise it might burn for ever in the land ; The priest, was prophetic, hut not in the Way"lie meant to be. He drew the attention of the ardrigh to a fire on thWadiacent hill of Slane. Immediately the king despatched warriors to bring to Tata to bo punished those who had dared to disobey and set at naught the order of the ardrigh issued in honour of the god Baal. The day was Easter Saturday, and the fire on Slane hill had been the paschal one lit by St .Patrick and his followers. The saint was on Easter Sunday arraigned before the ardrigh and his court on the open hillside. On that day he proclaimed to his judges the gospel

which he had been sent to preach, and with such eft'ecfc that -king, chiefs, bards and priests all became very greatly interested, and were finally converted. But they stumbled and hesitated over the doctrine of the Three-one God. It was St Patrick's mission to teach as well as to preach, and it was for him to explain to those heathen men all about the Trinity, the Almighty Father, Son and Holy Ghost. At his feet was growing a humble* shamrock, and this no plucked. Pointing to its trifoliate structure, ha asked his hearers why, if three lea/ves could grow on one stem, there could not bo three Gods as one God? His homely illustration won its way to the hearts of his simple listeners, and they accepter! the gospel he preached. To this day Iroland and the shamrock are indissolubly united.

St Patrick's Day is not the day cf the saint's birth, but the day of his death. It was on March 17, 493, that he passed from this life to that which is to come, and in accordance with Catholio custom it is the day of a saint's entrance into heaven that is celebrated. An Irish tradition is that the saint, following his Master's example, fasted ,for forty days and forty nights upon Mount Croagh Patrick, and, wrestling with God in prayer, obtained the position of judge of the Irish race when the great day of judgment comes. If that be so, and St Patrick be what all Irishmen believe him to be, then there is won for the Irishman already a throne and a harp and an eternal glory, so that he may well wear his shamrock on the saint's day on earth, and celebrate that day with all his heart and soul and strength and mind. May God bless him, and all that 'are his!