This is a response too the History Channels: St. Patrick's Day
I had always known some of St. Patrick's day given my father firmly
believes that we did come from Ireland and when I was younger I spent a lot of
time looking into our families background.
Unfortunately ship manifests don't go back to when the first Irish
started coming over -after England took control. I biggest question is: Was the
holiday and its date really only made
for St. Patrick's Day or like a lot of other holidays that are religious was it
taken mostly from the Pagans? They did mention the Celtics briefly and those
little facts were rather interesting considering I just haven't had the time to
look into this holiday in particular, but they forgot to mention one of the
biggest myths about Patrick and that was he was referred to driving the
'snakes' from Ireland. Clearly snakes are a symbol for the Pagan's. They did
mention that, but only in the light to make what he did and what the church did
as the good 'right' event. Which to me is simply irritating and frustrating
given I am a Pagan.
Given their twisted
one-sided version I decided to look it up, now this is only from one person who
blogged about her family's history and their personal views, but I really wish
the History channel had interviewed a Pagan as they had those Christian priests
and only goes to show how biased even they are sometimes. Anyway, this woman in
her blog stated that growing up for her, especially on this day, was
"vastly different from the popular secular view." She came from a
long line of "hereditary witches" that carried their beliefs since
Ireland. She was taught to reject this holiday, her grandmother would even spit
at the mention of St. Patrick, and over all they shunned wearing black. To me
that was actually startling, but thinking about it I do understand. These
Christians who preached their religion were invaders to her family and the
Pagans. Missionaries were instruments for subjugation of the Irish isle to the Christian
church, and as this author of the blog said again in parenthesis after
mentioning all this, "and who {I'm guessing the missionary people}, worst
of all, wasn't even Irish!" Then again she could be talking about Patrick
himself. She also states that March 17th is a Pagan holiday known as Ostara
(the 2nd spring festival that occurs yearly which is also coincided with Easter).
Now I wonder how
different this documentary would be if they had interviewed people like this
and showed the other side, instead of simply saying 'St. Patrick's Day is the
celebration of the Christianization of Ireland ' -when in fact it was the mass execution
of their Pagan heritage? Really gives it a whole new meaning and now I realize
why I never did celebrate this holiday. Something about it always felt wrong, and here is my answer.
**I got the blog from http://www.pagancentric.org/pagans-and-saint-patricks-day/
