Saint Patrick's Day Tights

Today is Saint Patrick's day. Saint Patrick was a Romano-British Christian missionary, (i.e. someone forcing his beliefs down the throats of others), and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of the island.

Celebrating St Patrick

Two authentic letters from him survive, from which come the only generally accepted details of his life.When he was about 16, he was captured from his home and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After becoming a cleric, he returned to northern and western Ireland as an ordained bishop, but little is known about the places where he worked. By the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland.

Saint Patrick wasn't much younger than these guys when he was taken as a slave

Most available details of his life are from subsequent hagiographies (aka lies like the gospel accounts of Jesus), and these are now not accepted without detailed criticism (again like the gospel accounts of Jesus' life). The Annals of Ulster state that he arrived in Ireland in 432, ministered in Ulster around 443, and died in 457 or 461.The text, however, distinguishes between "Old Patrick" and "Patrick, archapostle of the Scots," who died in 492. The actual dates of Patrick's life cannot be fixed with certainty but, on a widespread interpretation, he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the second half of the 5th century.  Like many saints and religious figures we cannot even be sure of his dates let alone the deeds he did.

Saint Patrick's Day is observed on March 17, the date of his death. It is celebrated both inside and outside Ireland, as both a liturgical and non-liturgical holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation; outside Ireland, it can be a celebration of Ireland itself - and a chance to get pissed.

So what tights are you wearing this St Patrick's day?

At least try some green tights:

Good tights to pass out in

Or some shamrock tights

Now that gets me to the shamrock.  Legend (dating to 1726) credits St. Patrick with teaching the Irish about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a three-leafed plant, using it to illustrate the Christian teaching of three persons in one God. For this reason, shamrocks are a central symbol for St Patrick’s Day.  The shamrock had been seen as sacred in the pre-Christian days in Ireland. Due to its green colour and overall shape, many viewed it as representing rebirth and eternal life. Three was a sacred number in the pagan religion and there were a number of "Triple Goddesses" in ancient Ireland, including Brigid, Ériu, and the Morrigan.

So to sum up:

• Saint Patrick probably didn't teach using a shamrock (earliest date 1726 is rather a long time after his death)
• The Shamrock idea was borrowed from paganism.  The way Christianity borrowed the ideas of Christmas, Jesus as a god, Jesus' virgin birth, Jesus' resurrection and all that sort of stuff.
• Still, shamrocks make a nice pattern on tights.

Not that the shamrock is even a good symbol of the trinity.  It sort of makes the godhead look like a set of Siamese (conjoined) triplets.  Perhaps this is not so far from the orthodox doctrine.  Gregory Thaumaturgus. in his Ekthesis tes pisteos composed between 260 and 270, writes:

"There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity: nor is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered afterwards: therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit: and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable forever "

By the way I hope you guys are wearing shamrock (or at least green) tights too, I'm sure as a good catholic St Patrick wouldn't  mind.

Tights or socks and leggings?

 And let's finish with Saint Patrick and the snakes. he absence of snakes in Ireland gave rise to the legend that they had all been banished by St. Patrick-chasing them into the sea after they attacked him during a 40-day fast he was undertaking on top of a hill.

Must have been one St Patrick missed.

However, all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes, as on insular New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica. So far, no serpent has successfully migrated across the open ocean to a new terrestrial home - such as from Scotland (at one point only eight miles from Ireland), where a few native species have lived.

Well fed for his migration.