Top of the mornin’ to ya. Ain’t life grand.

You can always trust the Irish to put a positive spin on everything, including mornings. Just suppose that last night, one of those monster flooding type of storms came through and wiped out your back 90, and supposing in the morning after surveying the damage, you put on your billy boots and start out on your five-mile walk to the village to suss out the bigger picture of the storm’s damage. You’ve not gone far on the road when you see your neighbor up ahead, and when you’re within shouting distance of each other, you call out, “Top of the mornin’ to ya.” Of course you do.

So let’s celebrate. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The patron saint of green beer and drunken parades. You might not have known that. But the one thing you do know, I’m sure, is Patrick is the one who banished the snakes from Ireland.

Not so fast, leprechaun breath. That snake story is a man-made myth created by the Roman Christians, the would be invaders and conquerors of Ireland. The reality is that there never were any snakes in Ireland. What there was instead was the pagan religion with its Druid shamans. Druid art includes many depictions of the serpent, often coiled around a staff, an important symbol for the pagans.

What Patrick was sent to Ireland to do was not to banish the snakes, but to banish the serpents – the Druids. Which is what the Christians did. Out with the old and in with the new. It was in the fifth century when Patrick came to Ireland and Christianity took over, which, coincidentally, is when another Irish saint was said to be born, St. Brigit.

Pre-Christianity, the pagans in Ireland worshipped the supreme goddess Brigit. She meant everything to them; she was their morning, noon and night, and so the Christian leaders realized that the best way to convert the pagans to Christianity was to adopt and adapt some of the pagan rituals as their own and thus become easier to swallow. Thus the old goddess Brigit became the new saint, Brigit.

Celtic mythology is rich in legend. What’s most fascinating about myths for me is distinguishing the facts from the fantasy. I always thought the snake story was a fact, and here it turns out to be a euphemism, a mythical fantasy. I have to thank my friend Joyce for putting me on this fact-finding journey just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

Éirinn go Brách!

To celebrate the day, Van Morrison’s lilting Irish lullaby …