May your shamrock be forever green …

It’s St Patrick’s day … time to gather some shamrock. Shamrock, of course is clover and given special meaning to today because of it’s three leaves which are interpreted to represent the holy trinity.

It has long been claimed that St Patrick was born in Scotland some time around 400 AD. It is know for definite that he actually existed and was enslaved in Ireland at around the age of sixteen. He managed to escape when he was about twenty-two and threw himself into becoming a Christian priest. He went on to become a Bishop and returned to Ireland to convert the Irish population to become Christian.

There are reported to be two original writings by St Patrick that are still surviving after all this time … the first is a letter written to Coroticus (an ancient king of a small area of land which is most likely to be within the area of Northumbria), the second is known as the Confessio (The Confessio is a piece of work whereby St Patrick is said to have written down a dream. In the dream he received a letter from someone called Victoricus – the letter begins with a heading entitled ‘The Voice of the Irish.’ During the dream he is said to have heard voices imploring him to go back and walk amongst the people of Ireland … he apparently never finished the end of the letter in his dream.) The dream is said to have spurred him on to return to the land of his enslavement … which of course, he did.

~~~Shamrock (three-leafed clover) – a lucky charm said to grant wishes~~~