St Patrick: Irish National Hero or Imperialist Shill?

Look, I'm about as Irish as a bowl of Lucky Charms covered in Jameson, but I've had it with St. Patrick. First off, that guy wasn't even Irish. He was from Britain. And what did he do that was so great? He converted the so-called “savages” to Christianity. That's right. He was a British guy who came to our land because he wanted to change our religion. Sound familiar?

Sure, he wasn't a dick about it like Christopher Columbus was to the Native Americans, or the way future British guys acted toward us concerning the Catholic vs Protestant schism, but still, don't you think it's funny that the holiday honoring the man who supposedly “civilized” the Irish is celebrated by people getting as uncivilized as possible?

Before St. Patrick came along, the Irish did not know that Leprechauns weren't real and spent most of their time trying to get to the end of the rainbow. They did this in order to get the pot o' gold thereby allowing them to buy enough potatoes to survive through the winter. St. Patrick showed them the error of their ways, teaching the dirty lute-playing brutes to rely on faith in God and not little green men who hang out at the ends of rainbows. St. Patrick bested heretical Christian rivals in debates by using a shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity (three in one, see!). If he was ever presented with a four-leaf clover, he would just say that that one included the Holy Mother and pronounce it lucky. That's where this tradition comes from.

Even though he is an important person in Irish History, the fact remains that he is not a real Irishman. A real Irishman, in my view, is someone born and raised in Ireland, or at least someone who’s family originated in Ireland and had been living there since some arbitrarily chosen date. Now I'm not trying to rag on immigrants here, Lord knows some of ‘em are actually worth a damn, but I think that the Irish holiday should be represented by someone who was a true Irishman and not some foreigner who came over and demanded that we change our beliefs and our way of life to accommodate him. Under St. Patrick, a whole system of mores and folkways was abolished.

I'm as modern as anybody else and I can fully appreciate the argument that maybe using Leprechauns along with some hippy-sounding stuff about loving nature as the central tenants of your religion might not be the best idea, but St. Patrick, as a foreigner, had no business doing what he did. He should have respected the Native peoples' beliefs. He should have been more sensitive to their beloved traditions and since he was living on their land he should have adopted their religion and cultural practices or at least have had the decency to practice Christianity in private and not try to force it on anybody. St. Patrick was an imperialist, plain and simple.

Everyone has a right to their own beliefs and when you come into my land you had better not question or criticize the things that I believe. This not only hurts my feelings, but makes me clench my fists in bitter indignation. If St. Patrick was so against the Druid religion, he should have stayed in Britain and let the Irish people be.

That is why I’m proposing that instead of honoring this priestly East India Company every year, we should honor a true Irishman and venerate true Irish heroes as well as Irish cultural contributions. Let’s get rid of St. Patrick’s Day and replace it with St. Bono’s Day. The music of U2 has definitely raised Ireland’s cultural stature in the eyes of most of the world. Let’s embrace that. Hell, it’s not just U2. Ireland has produced many great artists, poets, writers, and statesmen from James Joyce to Bill O’Reilly. Personally, I could totally get down with a holiday honoring Samuel Beckett or George Bernard Shaw. Or how about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams? If anybody’s fought for Ireland and her interests, it’s this great man.

Or if you prefer your legends non-living, how about the hunger striker Bobby Sands? He was a great Irish patriot who died in an act of defiance of the government’s all too successful attempt to deny him the right to carry illegal firearms. There’s nothing more Irish, American, or Irish-American than not backing down when the government tries to punish you for exercising your right to bear arms. Especially when you intend to use those arms against the King of England. That was the exact same enemy the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind when they wrote the Second Ammendment. “We need guns to keep the King of England in his place” said George Washington as he drank his green beer in a smoky Irish pub whilst wearing his “I’m With Federalism” t-shirt.

We Irish, Irish-Americans, Irish-Canadians, and everyone else with the word Irish anywhere in their self-descriptions need to rid ourselves of this agent of British Imperialism known as St. Patrick and embrace our true culture and heritage.

Now excuse me, but it’s almost half past noon and I’m going to put “the Joshua Tree” in my stereo, grab a Guinness from the fridge, and maybe later I’ll stroll on down to my local McDonalds and order that most delectable dish of authentic Irish cuisine, The Shamrock Shake. But for now, I need to wrap this up so I can resume my St. Ted Kennedy’s Day weekend celebrations.

ERIN GO BRAGH!