SNAKES & ST.PATRICK'S DAY

Snakes & St. Patrick’s day.
St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is celebrated worldwide every March 17th.
The legend has it that St. Patrick was attacked by Snakes on top of a hill during a 40-day fast. He chased all the Snakes into the sea, freeing Ireland from them forever. This tale has been widely accepted for centuries & has become an integral part of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, despite the fact that fossil record of Ireland shows that there have never been Snakes in Ireland. This myth likely represents a metaphorical victory over pagans, their religious beliefs & practices, the Devil. In many cultures Serpents are seen as symbols of evil or sinfulness. Parades & festivities feature images of St. Patrick driving out Snakes, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. There are legends about him defeating Druids in contests of magic & using the 3 leaves of a native Irish Clover, the Shamrock, to explain the Holy Trinity, Father, Son & Holy Spirit to the pagan Irish. None of it is true. The Shamrock legend came along centuries after Patrick’s death, as did the miraculous battles against the Druids.
Patrick also did not introduce Christianity to Ireland as this had been done by earlier missionaries, it took more than a hundred years to take over. Patrick wore no miter as they weren't invented for another 500 years, never met a High King at Tara as there were no High Kings in Ireland during his lifetime. All this was just added to Patrick’s list of myths.
Patrick did, however, successfully abolish the public holy rites of Druids & converted the local kings & chieftains to his beliefs.

Patrick was born around 450 A.D. somewhere near Scottish city of Dumbarton. The exact place cannot be confirmed. Patrick's real name was probably Maewyn Succat & his father, Calpornius, was apparently a Roman-British army officer & a deacon. When the Roman Empire was disintegrating & unable to protect it's territories, Britain became a target for invasion by many tribes, including those who crossed the Irish Sea from the land known as Hibernia, Ireland.
Patrick’s life there was ordinary & completely unexceptional, until the age of 16 when he was kidnapped, along with his neighbours, by Irish slave traders & he was sold as a slave to several chieftains in Ireland. It was a time when dozens of Irish kings ruled the country with the help of head-hunting warriors & Druids guided their followers in a religion filled with their countless gods. He spent 6 years working as a herdsman of Sheep & Pigs on Mount Slemish in Co. Antrim. During this period, he became fluent in the Irish language & increasingly religious. He considered his kidnapping & imprisonment as a punishment for his lack of faith so he prayed hundred times a day until one night he heard a mysterious voice called to him, saying, “Look, your ship is ready!”. This vision led him to stow away on a boat bound for Britain & he escaped back to his family.
Back home he had a dream that the Irish were calling him to return to Ireland & tell them about God, which he did as a priest some 12 years after the studies in France where he was trained in a monastery & dedicated this period of his life to learning.
For 20 years he travelled the Ireland & worked tirelessly to convert the Irish people from their native Celtic polytheism to Christianity, baptising people & establishing monasteries, schools & churches as he went. Eventually he was ordained as a deacon, then priest & finally as a bishop.
By the time he died, on 17. March 461 or 493, he left behind an organised church with lots of Christians.
He was buried either in Downpatrick, Co Down or in Armagh..
Patrick became one of the three patrons of Ireland, along with St. Brigit & Columba.