St Patrick's Day in Ireland

Slea Head on the Dingle Peninsula

This is one of my favourite pictures which i took at Slea head on the Dingle peninsula. You can see the Blasket Islands to the right. This old house must date back hundreds of years and is in such an exposed location that it must have been literally battered by the prevailing winds in stormy weather. That main window upstairs would have given a clear view of the fishermens boats both leaving and returning from the sea. I am sure that there were many times when families waited in dread for possible bad news on stormy nights. Many prayers would have been prayed and i am sure that St Patrick was begged to intercede on many occasions.
Tomorrow is his big day and what a universal celebration this has turned out to be. Is there any saint who is celebrated like St Patrick is? It is not just the Irish who celebrate this day but all those who become adoptees for the day. Nobody parties like the Irish and i suppose that down through the years the party atmosphere created on St Patrick's day by the Irish was just so infectious that everybody joined in. We wore our green with pride and there was something magical about it all. We dressed as Leprechauns and painted everything green for the day and then the Americans got into the act and dyed rivers and beer and God knows what else. They do things in style and we appreciated that. They even changed our "Paddy's Day" to "Patty's Day"but we did not mind that either. They were partying with us and we love big crowds at our gigs. They even got their President in on the act, and that was easy because they are all Irish anyway. Here in Ireland tomorrow we will have bands from all over the USA in our parades. They will be accompanied by many family members and organisers and it is always a great boost to our tourist industry. The Chauffeurdrive business reaps the benefit of this and it signals the arrival of the first batch of people from all over the world to our country for the coming year.
It really is a great day to be Irish. When i look at that picture i posted today i think of the people who looked out to sea as their family members sailed away to the New World many years ago. They carried with them great stories of this proud land including the story of that great man who brought Christianity to our country. I think that at this time he must be pretty annoyed with those people who have brought our church into disrepute by their actions. St Patrick had to overcome great challenges to convert the Irish.....maybe with his help we can once again overcome the new challenges that we face here now. He made changes and now we have to do the same.

Comments please

http://www.chauffeurdriveholidays.com