Rediscovering St PatrickHazel Mulhare - 17 Mar 2011
I heard recently that genetic testing on a sample of Irish people they found no evidence of even a trace of Viking DNA. Which is surprising considering that seems to be everyone’s excuse for our fiery temperament. Norsemen simply stole the best looking Celts and transported them to Scandinavia!
The article got me thinking of the centuries of pillaging that have gone on in Ireland. When everyone and their mother seemed to wind up coming to the shores of Eire to do their plundering it built a resolve in the Irish. What did they have left if all their riches and good-looking men and women were being taken from them? Plus it rained all the time!
The common answer is they learned to joke and they learned to drink. But there’s more to it than that.
When St Patrick came to Ireland and started training monks he made sure they were teachers and artisans. The newly converted and ordained monks set up monasteries all over the country which became hubs for learning, prayer, worship and miracles as well as being working farms and guilds. When the Roman Empire was going up in smoke these monasteries held on to European literature, history and philosophy. In the 1500 years since then the Irish sent out more missionaries, artists and writers than any other small country. When the British wouldn’t let them talk about Ireland as it’s own country they sung allegorical songs, when they weren’t allowed to teach children their history they made up stories. The point is that there was always a sense of ingenuity, the Irish were more wily than wild.
When I look at all the good that came out of Patrick’s time in Ireland I think about how he must have instilled such a sense of value in the people, something that’s perhaps been lost. When he told them that, instead of their angry druidic gods, that the true God loved and valued them I can’t imagine that not changing every part of life.
So on Lá Fhéile Pádraig (St Patricks Day) I’m asking God to unlock the treasure chest of Ireland, to wake up the dry bones. We have more to offer the world than Riverdance, Guinness and Bono. When John F Kennedy visited he said:
Ireland has already set an example and a standard for other small nations to follow. This has never been a rich or powerful country, and yet, since the earliest times, its influence on the world has been rich and powerful. No larger nation did more to keep Christianity and Western culture alive in their darkest centuries. No larger nation did more to spark the cause of independence in America, indeed, around the world. And no larger nation ever provided the world with more literary and artistic genius.
The old Irish hymn ‘Be Thou My Vision’ was played in Irish at my church on Sunday and the title as gaeilge is 'bí thusa i mo shúile' - 'be in my eyes'. Patrick must have prayed that for the Irish, Lord give them vision, be in their eyes. May that be our prayer today.
This blog post originally appeared on the 24-7 Ireland website. The Irish are 3 months in to a year of non-stop prayer, if you're in Ireland please consider joining in however you can, and for those of us that aren't lets join in with that prayer: Jesus be in my eyes and be in the eyes of the Irish people.