Happy St. Patrick's day!! Here's to green beer, kissing my blarney and to a guy nobody really knows. You should have known I would look into this holiday. How could you not, after all it is an Irish holiday. We are talking about a land of red headed drunks and the great french fry famine. How surprised do you think I was when I started looking into the history of the good fellow Paddy O'Furniture(I might as well give him a name). Here's what I found.... his name was "probably" Maewyn Succat, yes I said probably, nobody really knows. But they do know he was the son of Calpurnius a Roman-British army officer. Yes, Josh, he isn't even Irish(that's what you get for drinking Guinness). Wait a minute this just in....according to http://www.history.com/ his father was a Christian deacon and Paddy was born into a wealthy British family(damn British, not only take half the country but Ireland's holiday too.) But see papa was smart because he was a deacon for tax reasons a good Christian he was (must be a Catholic cause he was always thinking about money, OUCH!) Then one day as our young lad Paddy was playing in the church graveyard or the heavily guarded Roman-British fort along came a panel van full of creepy pirates or a low rider full of Irish raiders and kidnapped our green lovin' Paddy. Gasp! Well the pirates sold him into slavery and the raiders made him tend to the sheep where the good lad discovered the likes of Corned Beef, Irish Stew, Guinness and how to turn shitty tasting beer green to warn others that it isn't Guinness and therefore not worth drinking. On a side note... green beer = nasty, red = Killian's , Dark = Guinness(yummy). So, picture Paddy tending the sheep.. he has a vision... he needs to walk 200 miles..no wait he needs to hop a ship and sail to freedom. Of course this was after six years of captivity, nobody said he was bright, after all it took him six years to leave, even though he was left alone in a "Friggin" field every day FOR SIX YEARS! Then while he is back in Britain he has another vision and studies Theology for 12 years(uhhmmm we do it in 4 to 5 years now, seminary school, lot less to know now, evidently). Low and behold he decides he needs to go back to Ireland and teach the Irish about God, really it's in the Confessio something about a letter from Victoricus and the "Voice of the Irish" I'm thinking someone had a tad to much Green Beer or he wasn't tending sheep more like a little "Mary Jane" I'm just saying. After all, he celebrated Easter with fire and created the Celtic cross by adding a sun symbol to a cross, he had to be on something..right?
Ever wonder why the shamrock is so popular on this day... Paddy used it to represent the trinity(father, son and holy spirit). He is even given credit for driving snakes out of Ireland, forced them all into the sea so they would drown.. except of course the water snakes cause they can swim and all so they followed the gulf stream and ended up in other countries. Thanks for that Paddy. If you want to learn more about shamrocks, Leprechauns and the Blarney Stone check out http://www.theholidayspot.com/
If you are wondering about Corned Beef (I know you are) it came about when Irish immigrants discovered that corned beef was cheaper to purchase than pork but it is not a tradition of Ireland, Bacon and Cabbage would be closer to tradition. But here is a blurb I found... leave it to the British...
The Celtic grazing lands of...Ireland had been used to pasture cows for centuries. The British colonized...the Irish, transforming much of their countryside into an extended grazing land to raise cattle for a hungry consumer market at home...The British taste for beef had a devastating impact on the impoverished and disenfranchised people of...Ireland. Pushed off the best pasture land and forced to farm smaller plots of marginal land, the Irish turned to the potato, a crop that could be grown abundantly in less favorable soil. Eventually, cows took over much of Ireland, leaving the native population virtually dependent on the potato for survival.
”
—Jeremy Rifkin
During the time of the Great potato famine in order to sustain the British taste for beef cultivated land of Ireland was used for grazing pushing out land used to grow other crops. Thus, the start of Atkins in Ireland.
Anyway, to my Irish friends(Josh especially) have a great St. Patrick's Day!! I for one will be having corned beef and cabbage. To my sister Kris, may the Black Sheep prosper on this day! She will be serving corned beef and cabbage until 8:00 pm tonight along with, of course, cold Guinness. Enjoy the song!
Ask, Believe, Receive!
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