St. Patrick’s Day—a Pattern.
“An Irishman all in his glory was there,
With a sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green.”
It happens that several fairs, similar to those in the country parts of England as to tents and booths, are held in Ireland on Saint Patrick’s day, and then its hilarity is heightened by the publicity of the celebration.
The usual fair day or “patron,” or, as it is usually pronounced, pattern or patten, is a festive meeting to commemorate the virtues of a patron saint. It is a kind of rural fete with drinking and dancing, whereto (in Ireland) is added fighting, “unless the neighbouring magistrates personally interfere, or the spirits of the people are repressed by a conscious participation in plots and conspiracies.” This is the character of these festivals by an Irish writer, who relates an anecdote resulting from one of these festivals: “We were waiting (he says,) in the vain hope that the weather would clear up, and allow us a fine evening for return, when a poor stranger from Joyce country came before ‘his honour’ as a magistrate. His black eye, swelled face, and head and shoulders covered with clotted blood, too plainly told the history of his sufferings; and his woeful countenance formed a strange and ludicrous contrast with his account of the pleasures of the preceding evening.” He had obtained these features at a patron. “The poor fellow had travelled many a weary mile across the mountains to share its rustic mirth and revelry: but, ‘plaze your honour, there was a little bit of fighting in it,’ and as no true follower of St. Macdarragh could refuse to take a part in such a peaceful contest, he had received, and no doubt given, many a friendly blow; but his meditations on a broken head during the night, had both cooled his courage and revived his prudence, and he came to swear before ‘his honour’ a charge of assault and battery against those who had thus woefully demolished his upper works.”[82]
The constant use of the “shillelagh” by Irishmen at a “patron,” is a puzzling fact to Englishmen, who, on their own holidays, regard a “shillelagh” as a malicious weapon. In the hand of an Irishman, in his own country, at such a season, it is divested of that character; this singular fact will be accounted for, when the origin of the custom comes to be considered. At present, nothing more is requisite than to add, that the “shillelagh” is seldom absent on St. Patrick’s day, celebrated as a patron.
Some account of the commemoration of this festival, and of the tutelar saint of Ireland and his miracles, is already given in vol. i. p. 363. To this may be added the annexed notices relative to the day, obtained from an Irish gentleman.
It is a tradition that St. Patrick first landed at Croagh Patrick, a high and beautiful mountain in the county of Mayo, from which place he banished all venomous animals into the sea, and to this day, multitudes of the natives who are catholics, make pilgrimages to Croagh Patrick, under the persuasion of efficacy in these journies to atone for misdeeds, or mitigate the penalties attached to sin.
It is a very popular tradition that when St. Patrick was dying, he requested his weeping and lamenting friends to forego their grief, and rather rejoice at his comfortable exit, for the better furtherance of which, he advised each one to take “a drop of something to drink;” and that this last injunction of the saint in reverence to his character was complied with. However this may be, it is a custom on his anniversary to observe the practice to supererogation; for the greater number of his present followers, who take a little “crathur” for the purpose of dissipating woeful reminiscencies, continue to imbibe it till they “lisp and wink.”