Views on St. Patrick's Day

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/