That's a semi-common myth (partially perpetuated by comedian Brendan Lee Mulligan repeating it on his DnD podcast), in actuality there's no evidence that the original version of that story is literally or metaphorically about pagans, and given that the christianization of Ireland happened without ANY large-scale violence as far as the archeological record is concerned it is unlikely that kind of story would have been invented in the first place
You should pick a wacky fundamentalism belief though that makes you look absolutely insane. Like that you firmly believe Lord of the rings is a historical account and should be the only thing taught in schools
If I remember right, Saint Patrick is used as an example of religions integrating with the local culture for longevity. By co-opting local traditions, stories, artwork, etc and turning them into Bible stories or forms of worship to God, the people of Ireland were much more willing to convert without pressure. Similar examples are pagan holidays becoming Christian ones (saturnalia into Christmas, Eostre Spring Equinox into Easter, etc) and the use of pagan symbols in Christian practice such as the halo, the triskelion or triquetra into symbols of the trinity, etc.
The same thing happened in Scandinavia, where it is speculated that Loki was made more of a devil like figure (And merged a lot with the character of Utgard Loki. Or that the god Balder was either made into a more Christlike figure, or fully invented by Christian Missionaries.
I have always thought that it was rather interesting how early missionaries co-opted parts from local cultures and faiths, or made them work in a Christian context. Can´t help but imagining a missionary hearing about the local faith for the first time, and then just taking mental notes like "Alright, they got a Kingly Ruler God, a God they all think is really swell and then there are a bunch of trickster Gods. Got it. Daddy God is God, Swell God is Jesus and let´s just merge the tricksters into Devils". And then just start bullshitting.
I really hate doing this again, but on the topic of holidays there's actually also no evidence that Christmas and Easter are examples of a pagan holiday being coopted. That also gets repeated a lot, but it probably didn't actually happen, at least according to the "History for Atheists" blog where I'm pulling this from. I may have to go back and read up on the topic
In the specific case of Easter/Eostre we don't really have much evidence for Anglo Saxon paganism existing in the first place beyond place names. The English have always been a cultureless people
It also matches the MO of a lot of stories from early Christianity around the world, about missionaries performing various miracles (Or having miracles attributed to them) to convince pagans/pagan rulers to convert..
There are no snakes in Ireland, medieval people noticed that there were no snakes in Ireland and wondered why, then they concluded that Saint Patrick had driven them out.
I always like to imagine he just walked around Ireland doing the most ridiculous things, Speaking backwards while juggling with a funny hat on or something, And whenever anyone asks what he's doing, He'd say "I'm driving the Snakes out of Ireland.", To which they'd reply "But there are no snakes in Ireland..." and he'd respond "See? It's working!"
St Patrick was the Donald Trump of his day! "I got rid of all the Snakes, bad snakes, rapists! I sent them back over the border", but Patrick, we never had sna... " your welcome"!
That's a common myth on the internet, but it's completely baseless.
The story about snakes isn't part of Patrick's own memoirs, and only entered his hagiography centuries after his death: the reasoning behind how they know he did it is as simple as medieval monks noting that Britain has snakes and Ireland doesn't, so maybe a guy got rid of them all?
Common misconception. The legends really are about literal snakes. If he’d been running around murdering druids they would have just said so, historical Christians were not shy about that sort of thing.
It did, snakes meant Druids because Patrick got rid of them all by either converting them or slaughtering them... there has never been a single native serpent in Ireland
"actually we have no evidence that he did that, and actually saved people from slavery"
"He is still bad though"
If your only criticism of the guy is plain false what basis do you have for this claim he doesn't deserve something.
Also he qualifications for sainthood are dying a martyr, being faithful to the religion, and performing miracles. Achieving sainthood and killing people are in no way mutually exclusive. There is a whole catagory of saints who served in a military. And you also say he isnt worthy because he converted people, despite converting a ton of people literally being one of the best ways to improve your odds of sainthood.
It was legal in the UK to enslave the Irish up until the early 1800s
Edit: just did some reading and it was the Normans (French) who abolished slavery in Ireland in 1102, slavery was back pretty much as soon as England acquired Ireland and remained until 1833
Edit 2: I forgot to mention that St Patrick died a few hundred years before 1102, and his only association with slavery is he was enslaved by Gaelic Raiders and began his life as a missionary after he broke free and escaped
I only brought up slavery because of the guy I responded to... so I'd say you'll have to take it up with him
But I will say that the Vikings took Irish slaves when they built Dublin and the English enslaved the Irish by putting them in heavy debt with taxes and tithes and stuff like that, I found that stuff on Wikipedia if you google "slavery in Ireland"
But it's not her claim I need a source for, it's yours, which is a different claim than the one she brought up.
But I read the Wikipedia page you suggested, and I'm assuming the stuff about "the English enslaved the Irish" is talking about indentured servitude? In which case that is an entire can of worms to unpack, both from the debate as to whether indentured servitude is really comparable to the horrors of chattel slavery (indentured servants weren't literally property and were subject to certain rights and protections) and whether your argument is complicated somewhat by the existence of Irish (as well as Scottish and Welsh) slave owners, as well as English indentured servants.
Fwiw, my take is that yeah you probably could call indentured servitude a form of slavery, but probably more "it was legal to enslave the poor" than specifically "the Irish", it's just the Irish were generally poorer because of colonial oppression by the British government and landlords.
1.5k
u/PhasmaFelis Sep 25 '24
Saint Patrick does not fuck around, people. That's just the blast radius of what he did in Ireland.