Thursday, March 17, 2022

What's in a holiday?: St. Patrick's Day



What does Wicca have to do with St. Patrick's Day? There are some Celtic-Irish Wiccans who may be opposed to St. Patrick's Day as it may be seen by some as a day of celebrating Pagan oppression by the Christian faith. St. Patrick is the man whom many Christians give credit to for converting the ancient Irish Pagans. However, the truth is that converstion of Medieval Pagan populations to Christianity was never a sudden and complete transformation. In most cases, local folks were so deeply connected to their ancestral beliefs and deities that the Christians had to adapt their teachings to better fit Pagan traditions.

In Ireland, Pagans worshipped many different pantheons of Celtic deities - above all, the Devine Triple Goddess representing love, fertility and wisdom (Maiden, Mother & Crone). Although it is said that St. Patrick attempted to convert Pagans by showing the three leaves of the clover to them explaining the Christian Trinity and therefore making it the symbol of Ireland, the clover originally was (and still is) very much an ancient symbol of The Triple Goddess.

Even though today some Wiccans oppose St. Patrick's Day, there are still others who actually enjoy the celebration because they know of its' "hidden" meaning and perhaps may smile at the thought of devout Christians wearing a symbol of the Goddess. (I am one of them!)

It is important for us, as Wiccans, to remember that a majority of the contemporary holidays which we as Amercians celebrate today, including St. Valentine's Day which began as the Roman Pagan festival of Lupercalia, have their roots set in Paganism.

5 comments:

  1. Today was a day my family looked forward to celebrating. No, not St. Patrick's Day. March 17 is my dad's birthday. As an Italian-American, he always laughed and said he was more Irish than the Irish. Dad would have been 103 today.

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  2. Thanks for this informative post. It's true that many people nowadays have no clue about the origins of the holidays that they celebrate.

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    1. Quite right! I just love to learn the history of things. The History Channel is one of my favorites!

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  3. Hope you enjoyed a happy St Patricks Day.

    All the best Jan

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