[Cro Dreoilin] Interesting article on St. Patrick's Day

[Greyhart]

I have to wonder why a wealthy Noble woman would become a nun. Generally, a
second son who wasn't going to inherit, would join the Church. That way the
family had ties to the Church as a powerful ally, but that wasn't until the
middle ages. It may have happened earlier, but it was Tradition in the
middle ages. It may be that as the Church grew stronger, and women lost
power, they were sent to the Church if a suitable (read advantageous)
marriage couldn't be arranged for them. 

 

Greyhart

 

From: community-bounces at crodreoilin.org
[mailto:community-bounces at crodreoilin.org] On Behalf Of Amanda Ochs
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 4:30 PM
To: community at crodreoilin.org
Subject: Re: [Cro Dreoilin] Interesting article on St. Patrick's Day

 

Hi Cro Dreoilin Community,

I actually know the guy who wrote the article/ tied all the quotes together.
I haven't understood why neopagans insist St. Patrick's Day is solely about
cultural/religious genocide...the holiday came about fairly late, almost as
a celebration of Irish national rebellion concurrent with British imperial
rule.   

 

The "wearing of the green" is about Irish Nationalists rebelling against the
"Orangemen" or the Scots-Irish who were the Protestant representatives of
British Imperialism.  This is because the ruling family was the House of
Orange (William III and Mary of Orange).  St. Patrick's day historically is
really more about the modern nation-state of Ireland and its emancipation
from British rule at the turn of the 19th century, than it has much to do
with St. Patrick, other than he is the patron saint of Ireland for Catholics
and the Irish Church.  St. Patrick is used as a nationalist  symbol of the
oppressed Irish Catholics. 

If you look at Patrick's biography, he was a member of a noble
Romano-British family captured and put into slavery by Irish raiders. He
escaped and went on to become a potroast (um...priest...thank you
autocorrect).  Whether Patricius actually engaged in forcible conversion of
the pagan intelligentsia (Druids) or the later Irish Church found it
convenient for their own ends to write that into St. Patrick's hagiography,
I dont know.  

 

I understand Bonewits' complaint about religious and cultural genocide, but
I don't think that's how Christianity came to take hold in pre-Christian
Ireland.  One, Rome didn't arm its missionaries and advocate militaristic
conversion in this era.  Two, there aren't a lot of written records for this
time period.  What written records exist are those penned by Christian
monastics, and are what would be termed not only hagiographic, but also
polemic at times.  Many people who read Celtic Christian hagiography forget
that it obeys the rules of genre and is not bound to be a factual,
historical account, but a form of institutional mythohistory to replace a
culture's folklore.

I personally think that while there was tension in Ireland with a new
religion, I don't see evidence of a violent conversion founded on genocide.
I also don't know what happened to the Druids in the end.  Chris and Kelley,
I am sure you know much more than I do about Druidic history.

 

While Wikipedia still has its problems, there's a great article on St.
Patrick.  It seems there are a couple historical people mushed into the
mythical figure of St. Patrick.  Anybody who is interested in the early
Christian history of Ireland should read it.  And I think as Celtic
Reconstructionists, we should know an accurate history of this period in
Irish history as well.  As I have grown past my early knowledge seekings of
paganism and inserting my modern feminist agenda into history, I've found
the more research I do, the more grounded and happy I am with my spiritual
practice.  I do believe there is a much more syncretic or at least
multi-religious period in European history than many Christian historians
from the late medieval period onward would like to have us believe.  I don't
believe Christianity was the religious monolith that it wanted us to believe
it was, and many 19th century scholars created histories that reflect the
19th century values of nationalism and the nation-state. 

 

I was also very curious about the wealthy and noble women who were converted
into Christianity and became nuns.  Who were those women in Irish society?
This is mentioned in the Wikipedia article, not in the Wild Hunt blog.

 

Happy Spring! :)

Amanda

 

------------------------------
On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 1:27 PM MDT Kelley Forbes wrote:

>It's a bit late, but this article contains some interesting discussion.
Follow the links, too.
>
><http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2012/03/saint-patrick-druids-snakes-
and-popular-myths.html>
>
>
>-- Kelley.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Community mailing list
>Community at crodreoilin.org
>http://crodreoilin.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/community

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://crodreoilin.org/pipermail/community/attachments/20120327/eed00113/attachment-0001.html>