Today is St Patrick's Day, when the whole world is Irish for a day (well anyone that wants to be). The day started off badly as Claire's car was broken in to last night and there was a lot of glass to clear up. Thankfully nothing was stolen. Roma and I played a nine holes of golf in Leopardstown. I had a reasonable day's play as I scored three pars in a score of 17 points (sometimes it takes me 18 holes to get that many points). Roma played well too and is showing the benefits of her recent lessons and play. We adjourned to the Horse and Hound in Cabinteely for a bite of lunch (very nice) and a pint. I decided to take a break from Lent for 24 hours - the photo shows me holding up my pint (just the one!). The photo was taken by Roma with my iPhone - I am very disappointed with the quality of iPhone photos, no matter what I do I can't get a clear picture.
St Patrick's Day is celebrated to honour Ireland's patron saint (a Welsh man!) who us brought Christianity - these days it seems to be just a big excuse to drink a lot (see photo above!). I noted very few cars outside the local church this morning at Mass time (I didn't go either). As the Church is rapidly becoming less relevant to people's lives, will the day come when St Patrick's Day is no longer celebrated for what it is intended to be? Will the "St" be dropped? Perhaps it will be simply "Ireland Day" in the future? There are many people in Ireland today who are questioning the role of the clergy (St Patrick was a clergy man too), not just in the Catholic Church, but in all Christian churches. Did St Patrick do us a favour at all? If he had stayed away in Wales maybe we wouldn't have any of the Church scandals we have today?
I hope it stays as St Patrick's Day (I hate it being called "Paddy's Day") forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment