On March 17, much of the world will turn green again, as people celebrate the patron saint of being very drunk and wearing a novelty Guinness hat. But just who is St Patrick? David Whitley headed to Downpatrick in Northern Ireland to find out.
St Patrick's Grave
For someone so universally popular, St Patrick's grave isn't all that impressive. It's covered by a modest, unsculpted slab of stone with his name carved on. Well, part of the name is anyway — there's a great chunk missing that has taken the C, K and half the I with it.
The grave is outside Down Cathedral, which is perched on a hillside above the small town of Downpatrick. It's the sort of place that is invariably buffeted by huge winds, and you feel heartfelt sympathy for any old ladies trying to get up.
According to legend (and most of what we know about St Patrick should be taken with large pinches of salt), St Patrick died in nearby Saul. From there, angels descended and told those in charge of the body to put it on a cart and bury it in the first spot that the oxen stopped. Well, after lugging him up that hill, it's no wonder they stopped there.
St Patrick in Northern Ireland
Perhaps surprisingly, St Patrick has stronger links to Northern Ireland than the Republic in the South. It is thought that he first landed in County Down, and spent six years tending sheep on Slemish Mountain in County Antrim. Saul, meanwhile, is where he practiced a lot of his preaching and pagan-converting schtick. And, in the fields around Saul and Downpatrick, he struck upon the idea of illustrating the Holy Trinity with the shamrock. All of this could well be nonsense of course.
Fact and fiction
The joy of St Patrick is that we know so little about him. What we do know is largely derived from just two letters that Patrick wrote. It's fair to say that he was born in Britain (England, Wales or Scotland — no-one can give a definitive answer), and he was captured by raiders at the age of 16. He was then taken Ireland as a slave, and he worked as a shepherd.
Once he got his freedom, he fled to France, where he claims to have had a vision commanding him to return and convert Ireland to Christianity.
Beyond that, we know very little. Which, naturally, is a fabulous excuse to make it all up.
St Patrick Centre
Downpatrick plays host not only to St Patrick's Grave, but to a ridiculously expensive exhibition centre that explores the man and the myth. Millions and millions of Euros have been splashed out to make a whizz-bang interactive attraction focused on a subject nobody really knows anything about. And if that's not in the St Patrick's Day spirit, nothing is.
Parts of the centre are unintentionally hilarious. There are videos projected onto glass of actors solemnly reading St Patrick's 'Confession', computer games where you can pretend to be a cowardly Celtic warrior and a space age "time bridge" that takes visitors "back to the 5th century."
Straw-clutching
Funniest of all is all the stuff that is blatantly there because there really isn't much fact to go on. There are some Roman coins — "like the ones that would have been used by Patrick as a boy" and you can use an abacus — "like Patrick would have done when he was at school." You're also given the privileged opportunity to touch some wool — "just like the Irish used to make clothes."
Other bits seem geared towards those on cold turkey from taking LSD. There are dream sequences, random voices, and talking heads on screens all over the place. Meanwhile the landscapes shift from on a boat to barren hillsides via super-sleek futuristic glass panelling. It's all a little odd.
The making of St Patrick
Mercifully, the exhibition redeems itself later on. There's an IMAX screen, featuring a helicopter's eye view of most of the main St Patrick's sites in Ireland, plus interviews with bishops, dignitaries and locals on the importance of St Patrick to the Irish people. The general consensus appears to be that he was a bloody good chap, and worth celebrating by everyone regardless of denomination.
But the really interesting bit is where it explores how the cult of St Patrick built up.
Again it's done in every medium imaginable, but the theories are fascinating.
Most seem to agree that St Patrick was just one of many missionaries in Ireland at the time, but that biographers from the Middle Ages decided to attribute everything to Patrick and make him a focal point. Other snippets are fascinating — St Patrick was originally associated with the colour blue, rather than green, and the shamrock link first came out of thin air in 1727.
Snake-free Ireland?
As for chasing the snakes out of island? Complete nonsense, naturally. That's attributed to a Cistercian monk called Jocelyn who wrote a hugely popular history of Paddy, but embellished it with loads of stock miracles that feature in the stories of other saints. It's largely believed to be a metaphor — snakes equal badness — but the literal version stuck.
The whole thing indicates that the huge marketing machine that turned March 17 into a giant global celebration didn't just start when Guinness started putting up banners in Irish pubs — it's gone on for over 1500 years.
Where?
By bus, Downpatrick is about an hour south-east of Belfast. It hosts a week-long St Patrick's Festival around the big day. For more information, go to www.saintpatrickcentre.com.
