Today is\u00a0St. Patrick\u2019s Day<\/a>, a yearly holiday celebrating\u00a0Ireland\u2019s favorite patron saint<\/a>. While it\u2019s\u00a0a big event in Ireland <\/a>(and used to be\u00a0a very solemn occasion<\/a>), in America it\u2019s a\u00a0green-dyed<\/a> bacchanal where everyone is \u201cIrish for a day\u201d (let\u2019s not even start on\u00a0the horridly stupid \u201cunofficial\u201d St. Patrick\u2019s Day celebrations<\/a> on college campuses). For some modern Pagans (whether Irish or not), St. Patrick\u2019s Day isn\u2019t a day of celebrations, as they see Patrick, famously attributed with converting Ireland to Christianity, as\u00a0committing something akin to cultural genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u201csnakes\u201d that Patrick drove out of Ireland were the Druidic priests, who had serpents tattooed on their forearms. Celebrating him is like celebrating Stalin or Hitler.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pagan author Isaac Bonewits\u00a0called the day \u201cAll Snakes Day\u201d, and\u00a0penned songs<\/a> calling for\u00a0the return of the \u201csnakes\u201d<\/a> that Patrick is famously attributed with driving out, since many claim the \u201csnakes\u201d\u00a0are actually a metaphor for Pagans<\/a> (Ireland hasn\u2019t had real snakes in it since the last ice age<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cHe did not banish the snakes: Ireland never had any. Scholars now consider snakes a metaphor for the serpent of paganism.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n For years now, several individuals have worked to debunk this idea as well. It seems the \u201csnakes = Druids\u201d metaphor is a relatively recent invention, as was the idea that Patrick \u201cdrove them out.\u201d\u00a0P. Sufenas Virius Lupus<\/a>, a Celtic Reconstructionist Pagan (and scholar) who has extensively studied Irish myth and folklore, had this to say on the subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, this isn\u2019t true, and the hagiographies of St. Patrick did not include this particular \u201cmiracle\u201d until quite late, relatively speaking (his earliest hagiographies are from the 7th century, whereas this incident doesn\u2019t turn up in any of them until the 11th century). St. Patrick\u2019s reputation as the one who Christianized Ireland is seriously over-rated and overstated, as there were others that came before him (and after him), and the process seemed to be well on its way at least a century before the \u201ctraditional\u201d date given as his arrival, 432 CE, because Irish colonists (yes, you read that right!) in southern Wales, Cornwall, and elsewhere in Roman and sub-Roman Britain had already come into contact with Christians and carried the religion back with them when visiting home.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n His assertions are backed up by historian Ronald Hutton in his book \u201cBlood & Mistletoe: The History of The Druids in Britain.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n \u201c[Saint Patrick\u2019s] letters do, however, strongly suggest that the importance of Druids in countering his missionary work was inflated in later centuries under the influence of biblical parallels, and that Patrick\u2019s visit to Tara was given a pivotal importance that it never possessed \u2013 if it ever occurred at all \u2013 to suit later political preoccupations. [\u2026] The only appearances of Druids in documents attributed to Patrick himself occur in some that are generally thought to have been composed after his death.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The simple fact is that paganism thrived in Ireland for generations after Patrick lived and died, and, as Lupus puts it, \u201d\u00a0the \u2018final\u2019 Christianization of the culture didn\u2019t take place until the fourteenth century CE.\u201d<\/em> There was no Irish pagan genocide, no proof of any great violent Druid purge in Ireland, it simply doesn\u2019t exist outside hagiography. By the time\u00a0hagiographers started speaking of snakes and Druids, Irish paganism was already a remnant, and Irish Christianity the dominant religious force on the island. They were more worried about establishing heroic Irish saints than eradicating traces of paganism. \u00a0Further, as Celtic Reconstructionist Morgan Daimler points out<\/a>,\u00a0it makes almost no sense within the context of Patrick\u2019s tales to equate his snake-driving action as an anti-pagan allegory.<\/p>\n \u201cQuite frankly the rest of Patrick\u2019s hagiography has him dueling Druids right and left, killing those who oppose him with callous righteousnes, so why would the story suddenly get cryptic about him driving the Druids out? Every other page was proclaiming it proudly! No, this particular tidbit \u2013 which is suspiciously exactly the same as a story from the life of a French saint \u2013 was always meant to be literal. The earliest reference I have found to anyone thinking the snakes meant Druids (and thanks to the friend who helped me find it) is in the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries from 1911 where someone states that he believes based on a story that because a certain place was where the Druids last stronghold was and also the place Saint Patrick drove the snakes that the snakes must represent the Druids, but it\u2019s just faulty logic (Evans Wentz, 1911). The snakes in the story were just meant to be snakes, just as the toads were toads and Saint George\u2019s dragon was a dragon.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Others have made these points before<\/a>, yet the snakes = \u00a0Irish pagans meme persists, fueling all sorts of reactions. Some cling to it simply because it feels right, or because they like the idea of a holiday dedicated to pagan\/Pagan resistance to conversion. However, as Alexei Kondratiev pointed out in \u201cThe Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual,\u201d<\/a> one who wants to practice a Celtic form of Paganism, connected to the living, breathing, Celtic lands and peoples, should connect to them as they are, not simply as they wish them to be.<\/p>\n \u201cNeo-Pagans, who will be familiar with the two ritual cycles we discussed previously, but not with this one, may be tempted to reject it as too \u2018Christian\u2019 in inspiration. To this we may again reply that Christianity is a major part of the Celtic heritage, and cannot be removed from it without seriously distorting the whole. [\u2026] Our circle\u2019s celebration of St. Patrick\u2019s Day, for instance, need not be given over to green beer, plastic leprechauns, and such commercialized images of \u2018Irishness\u2019. One could, if one wished, ritually use the figure of St. Patrick, in a way that emphasized positive aspects of Irish identity\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cSt. Patrick casting out the serpents\u201d\n<\/div>\n