Day of Snakes

St Patrick was as Irish as...well, he wasn’t really Irish at all

The patron saint of Ireland that everyone celebrates on the 17th of March wasn’t Irish at all but British.  

Legend tells it that in addition to introducing Christianity to Ireland, St. Patrick banished all the snakes from the Emerald Isle, chasing them into the sea from atop a cliff where he had undertaken a 40-day fast. ... The truth is that there were never any snakes in Ireland to begin with. 

Mark Ryan, director of the Louisiana Poison Center at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, said in 2008 that the timing wasn't right for the sensitive, cold-blooded reptiles to expand their range. 

"There are no snakes in Ireland for the simple reason they couldn't get there because the climate wasn't favorable for them to be there," he said. 

Other reptiles didn't make it either, except for one: the common or viviparous lizard. Ireland's only native reptile, the species must have arrived within the last 10,000 years, according to Monaghan. 


Happy St. Patrick’s Day? I Don’t Think So.

Despite how it’s celebrated by you,  St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday.  It’s a Christian holiday. At one point it was (and in Ireland still is) a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church.  It’s a holiday commemorating the conversion of Ireland to Christianity.  Its celebrations may have become more secular over the years, but at its origin, it’s a celebration of religious colonialism and the destruction of indigenous traditions inherent in the work of this man for whom it is named.  Why, in the name of all that’s sacred, would I as a Pagan woman, celebrate that? Why would any non Christian?  For many Pagan's and especially Druids St. Patrick's Day isn't a day of celebrations, as they see Patrick, famously attributed with converting Ireland to Christianity, as committing something akin to cultural genocide.

The "snakes" that Patrick drove out of Ireland were the Druidic priests, whom had serpents tattooed on their forearms. Celebrating him is like celebrating Stalin or Hitler. 

A fellow Pagan and author Isaac Bonewits called the day "All Snakes Day", and penned songs calling for the return of the "snakes" that Patrick is attributed to having driven out.  As a devout Pagan, and someone working very hard to restore and rebuild the very faiths people like Patrick sundered, I would rather cut off an arm than put on the green for St. Patrick’s Day.


I on 'All Snakes Day" have for many ears now chosen a God or Goddess of Pagan Ireland and celebrate Them.  Embracing the ways of old, with offerings of wine and food.  I’m both Irish and Pagan and by doing this, embracing my rich history and beliefs I am spitting in the eye of St. Patrick and his Church’s agenda of wholesale Christianization. It’s a small thing, granted, but if we attend to the small things, the large have a way of handling themselves. By doing this we’re making a statement before our ancestors and Gods. We’re saying ‘we remember You. You’re not forgotten. Christianity did not win. We’re still here. And so are You.”

Blessings to the three realms which connect us to, sky, sea, and land.

Walk in beauty my friends.