The candle burning on my desk today just happens to be green, a fitting color for St. Patrick’s Day, but as I read over status postings on FB, one caught my eye. It claims genocide  is the real history associated with this holiday, so I decided to dig a little deeper. Here’s what I found, and from reputable sources like The History Channel. They don’t shy away from the brutal truth.  

Here’s the quick and dirty version.

St. Patrick was born in Britain to wealthy parents only to be captured by Irish raiders when he was still a young man. He was a captive for 6 years and presumably turned to his Christian faith during his hardship. Once he escaped, Patrick returned to Britain.

Then he supposedly heard the voice of God telling him to go back to Ireland where he encouraged the practise of Christianity.                    **NOTE: He did NOT introduce the religion. It already existed there.**

He did, however, perform a little trickery here and there, as did our friend Constantine, by mixing pagan symbols into Christian practice, thereby making it more “comfortable” for the pagans and greasing the wheels of conversion, so to speak. Nowhere did I find mention of killing mass numbers of pagans, or any hint of genocide, but throughout history change has always brought conflict and death, so I can imagine it wasn’t always pretty.

The act of driving snakes out of Ireland is a metaphor for getting rid of pagan practises. That is pretty much an accepted fact.

And what about the blue? the first color associated with “Feast Day,” now known as St. Patrick’s Day, was actually blue. However, the Irish flag has green on it, shamrocks are another favorite symbols, and heck, the whole of Ireland is pretty much and emerald. (Hence the nickname) So they went with green, especially in the 1700s when Irish-Americans paraded to show their discontent over being considered a lower social class. 

There is so much more to learn. The pinching, leprechauns, shamrocks, but I’ll leave that to you. Don’t you just love history? I do. It’s where we find ourselves.

So, I’ll burn my green candle, but will wear a blue shirt. I like the authenticity, and it will make me stick out in the crowd.  : )

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Sanskrit was a great answer, and some still argue that it is the reigning king of old languages, however, many scholars now point to language that I had never heard of until yesterday.

Tamil. It is widely believed to be at least 6,000 years old. Wow, and a written form to boot. It is related to languages that are considered Dravidian or proto-Dravidian…don’t get me started, because I got lost among all the references to guttural sounds etc. etc. and the many, many branches of the verbal family tree.

And I thought the old, old, English of Beowulf (the original, original that sounded half-German) was hard to follow.

Both Tamil and Sanskrit hail from India, so either way, they get the bragging rights.

Note:  Some reports claim that Tamil has only 1500 years under its belt and is beaten out by another language called Kannada, found in Bangalore.

Whatever the case, I got what I needed for research, and am happy that I speak my mother tongue, good old (or rather, good new) English.

Back to work on love and murder,

Suza