Green Beer Is Not Part Of The History Of St. Patrick’s Day

This weekend there are so many St. Patrick's Day parties and events going on from the "No pants party" to Tom Grainey's St. Patty's Day Weekend Throwdown that you will surely encounter green beer and a bunch of drunk heathens screaming "Kiss me I'm Irish" I can almost guarantee you will hear intoxicated fools screaming " Just like St. Patrick I've got a snake to banish"... hahahaha... As much as that line makes me laugh it couldn't be further from the facts. Green beer, snakes and all of the commercialized messaging is just that... marketing. I hate to break it to you but they've done the same thing with Cinco De Mayo ( No the 5th of May is not Mexican Independence day ). Okay now that we've got that cleared up how's about we learn the real history of St. Patrick's day according to lifehacker.com

St. Patrick, considered the patron saint of Ireland, was actually born in Banna Venta Berniae, a town in Roman Britain, sometime in the late 300s AD. That’s right, Patrick wasn’t Irish. And his name wasn’t Patrick either—it was Maewyn Succat, but he didn’t care for that so he chose to be known as Patricius down the line. He actually had many monikers throughout his life: he was known by many as Magonus, by others as Succetus, and to some as Cothirthiacus. But we’ll just call him Patrick since everybody else does. Has a nice ring to it...

His father, Calpurnius, was a deacon in the early Christian church, but Patrick wasn’t much of a believer himself. It wasn’t until he was captured by Irish pirates at the age of 16 and enslaved for six years as a shepherd that he chose to convert to Christianity. While in northeastern Ireland, Patrick learned the Irish language and culture before attempting to escape back to Britain. But Patrick wasn’t very good at escaping apparently, because he was captured again. This time by the French. He was held in France where he learned all about monasticism before he was released and sent home to Britain where he continued to study Christianity well into his twenties. Eventually, Patrick claimed he had a vision that told him to bring Christianity to the Irish people, who were predominantly pagan and druidic at the time, so Patrick he made his way back to Ireland and brought a big ol’ bag of Christianity with him.

When Patrick arrived back in Ireland, however, he and his preaching ways were not welcomed, so he had to leave and land on some small islands off the coast. There he began to gain followers, and he eventually moved to the mainland to spread Christian ideologies across Ireland for many years to come. During this time, Patrick baptized thousands of people (some say 100,000), ordained new priests, guided women to nunhood, converted the sons of kings in the region, and aided in the formation of over 300 churches.

Now that you know the real history go out and claim to be Irish all of a sudden and drink as much green beer as you can stomach. By the way. You may want to practice you're Irish accent.