We’re all at least reasonably familiar with the ins-and-outs of St. Patrick’s Day. People wear green, pinch kids, pretend to be Irish and get drunk before the sun sets. However, there are a whole score of traditions—historical and recent—which many people do not know about and I feel it’s my duty as a sorta-journalist to inform you, the reader who picked this magazine up at the strip club and is reading it, while waiting for the girls to cycle back on stage.
Okay, so, some history is needed here. The man known as St. Patrick was not actually from Ireland. He was born in then-Roman Britain. When he was 16, he was captured by Irish pirates (yeah, that’s a thing...arrr, boyo) and kept as a slave for many years. After eventually escaping slavery, St. Patrick went back to Britain, but not without a taste for horse meat, acquired from the Irish. He later went back to Ireland—apparently not having learned his lesson— and did all the stuff he is famous for, as part of some bizarre combination of masochism and missionary work. Some say he was compelled by his lust for horse meat, to return to the Emerald Isle and set up shop. Nobody really knows, but yeah, my bet’s on meat-lust as the driving factor. Anyhow, if you can find it, get a nice horse steak, garnish it with shamrocks and whiskey, and go to town. It can even be corned, if you’re into corned things. You can’t say "nay" to that!
No, not the Grateful Dead, but I’d yell at them too, if I could. Inspiring stoned teenagers to get stupid Jerry Bear tattoos for nearly 55 years now.
Goddamn! I digress, though.
St. Patrick’s Day is not the day of his birth, as one might think, but rather, his death. Nobody seems to know when he was born, but apparently everyone remembers when he died, and after hearing about the funeral too late to be there, many people came to visit his grave and shout all the things they wanted to say to him. In keeping with this, you should go to the local cemetery and yell at all the dead people who have disappointed you.
It was said that St. Patrick, when fleeing his captors in Ireland, tripped over a resting goat on his way and cursed it, in the name of the lord. To commemorate this, people the world over will often find a surrogate goat (surragoat?) to ridicule as St. Patrick might have done in cursing it. They are commonly made to wear "sacks of shame" and adorned with silly things, like streamers and even those Groucho Marx glasses-and-nose gadgets. Your trip to the petting zoo will be better than usual if you bring the right things and you can’t get kicked out if you explain the religious significance. It should be noted that, in Argentina—which has an oddly large demographic of Irish—they merely eat the goat. You can do that too, but only if you call the goat a total chump beforehand.
The knobby Irish walking stick and weapon, known as the "shillelagh," has been around since time immemorial. St. Patrick himself was known— as many historical figures in Ireland—to carry one for both walking and clubbing purposes. After brokering a peace treaty between two warring factions, he threw up his shillelagh in triumph and all the Irish in attendance followed suit, shortly thereafter. This is commemorated each year, when people will hurl clubs or walking sticks high into the air, to celebrate...uhh...peace or some shit. Grab your own stick and toss it into the air without any cares. If it maims any children, well, they must have had it coming. St. Patrick has your number, kids.
It is stated in many tales that St. Patrick had, with a wave of his staff (or shillelagh), banished forevermore all the snakes in Ireland. Historical records seem to indicate that there never were any snakes in Ireland—ever. So, that sounds like a pretty easy job.
"Hey, remember those snakes you don’t have?"
"Yeah."
"Well, they are all gone, thanks to me."
"Oh, uh...great?"
So, it has since been a common tradition to find or purchase snakes and release them outside your home. If you’ve ever worked in a furniture store, then you know that a lot of people commonly release them on the display models, though purists frown on this behavior.
In Irish folklore, the leprechaun (derived from the Old Irish word "luchorpán," meaning "little body") is a small, bearded man in a coat and hat, commonly known for mending shoes and causing trouble. St. Patrick himself is supposed to have come into conflict with one of these impish creatures, and when confronted with the nature of its mischief, he hit it in the head with his shillelagh. That stick, I tell ya, he got some miles out of that. The blow to the head killed the creature and St. Patrick was free of troubles from the wayward faerie kin. In modern times, with leprechauns being extinct in the wild, many merely create a leprechaun effigy and beat that in the head, while others still merely bingewatch the Leprechaun film series (except Leprechaun In Space, for religious reasons) in tribute—but, if you can find a live one, by all means, cave its skull in.
So, pat yourself on the back if you knew about any of these beforehand—but, it’s not like you win prize money or anything. Everyone else, well, you now have a few other optional activities for St. Patrick’s Day, beyond the usual curse-filled attempts to make Irish soda bread while you’re stinkin’ drunk. Have a happy intoxication day and stay off the damn roads.
Wombstretcha The Magniflcent is a writer, cryptocurrency acknowledger, crêpe maker (crêpist), trampoline critic and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at Wombstretcha. com, on Twitter as @Wombstretcha503 and on Facebook (and MeWe, the no-jail Facebook) as "Wombstretcha The Magniflcent."
