TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — It’s St. Patrick’s Day and the green has taken the world over, like it does every year. While modern celebrations focus on corned beef, hash, cabbage and Irish beer, Saint Patrick is known less for cabbage and more for clovers and snakes.
As the patron saint of Ireland, Patrick has a few legends on the books about his life during the Fifth Century. He was born to Roman parents while the Empire controlled what became the United Kingdom, and as a teenager, he was reportedly abducted by Irish raiders.
After six years, Patrick escaped, joined the Catholic Church, and went back to Ireland to preach as a missionary. It was there that he gained his reputation with the Irish and eventually, the British-born priest became one of Ireland’s religious and historical heroes.
Despite his fame and cultural significance, Saint Patrick wasn’t technically made a full saint by the Catholic Church, mostly because he lived and died before there was a full process for what’s called “canonization” to make a saint, a saint. Still, he’s a well-known historical and legendary figure in Ireland, and the world.
So, what’s Saint Patrick famous for?
Clovers and the Holy Trinity
Ireland is known for a lot of culture, customs and strange foods. Kilts, bagpipes and potatoes, as well as dance, beer, beautiful landscapes, clear skies and rolling green hills and mountains. One plant from the Emerald Isle is particularly famous, the clover, or shamrock.
The Irish shamrock is best known for its four-leafed variant, but the one made famous by Saint Patrick was actually a normal, three-leafed clover. While in Ireland, Saint Patrick reportedly used the clover to teach about the Holy Trinity, using its three leaves to describe the three parts of the hole with the native Irish plant.
The four-leafed clover is still considered lucky, but their rarity makes them hard to find. According to Nikki Tilley, author of “The Bulb-o-licious Garden,” only one of every 10,000 clovers has four leaves. The clover used by Saint Patrick is likely a white clover, Trifolium repens, which is a member of the bean family Fabaceae.
The name shamrock comes from old Irish, “seamrog,” meaning young clover, according to E. Charles Nelson’s “Shamrock: Botany and History of an Irish Myth: a Biography of the Shamrock in History, Literature, Music and Art.“
Snakes, no thanks
One of the most famous legends of Saint Patrick is his banishing of all of the snakes of Ireland by chasing them to the Irish Sea after they attacked him during a 40-day fast on a hill.
Since the 13th Century, in writings from Gerald of Wales, there’s been a legend of Saint Patrick ridding the country of its serpentine residents. However, Gerald was skeptical of the story. According to research published in “Saint Patrick Retold,” by Roy Flechner, the legend is found in three different texts, and Gerald of Wales though all three were wrong.
As the legend goes, according to Jocelyn of Furness, an English Cistercian hagiographer who died in 1275, Patrick “triumphed” over the slithery beasts and “rid” Ireland of snakes and other venomous creatures.
Gerald of Wales disagreed, instead, writing that the island simply never had snakes to begin with. As early as the third century, Roman writer Caius Julius Solinus wrote in his “Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium” that snakes were not found in Ireland.
Still, the legend persists. An earlier Irish saint, Columba, is credited with banishing snakes from the island as well in the eighth century. Going into the science of it, even the Irish don’t necessarily believe the myth in modern times.
Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland told National Geographic in 2008 that there were never any snakes in Ireland.
“At no time has there ever been any suggestion of snakes in Ireland, so [there was] nothing for St. Patrick to banish,” Monaghan said. Monaghan said there were no fossils of snakes in the country, nor records of snakes among other Irish animals. He said Ireland’s start underwater and melting glaciers kept it from opening to snakes, even when other animals got through.
“Snake populations are slow to colonize new areas,” Monaghan told National Geographic.
So, as debunked by the History Channel, no, Saint Patrick probably didn’t kick the snakes out of Ireland.