Happy St. Pat's

You know that I never play the punk role
Cause I'm a white Irish man with a funk soul
--House of Pain

Yes, the House of pain couldn't write a lyric to save their life (besides what was on Jump Around) but they had heart for sure.

Anyhoo, this is a brief post about the history of St. Pat, from Wikipedia:

Saint Patrick (Latin: Patricius[2], Irish: Naomh Pádraig) was a Roman Britain-born Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. When he was about sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. He entered the church, as his father and grandfather had before him, becoming a deacon and a bishop. He later returned to Ireland as a missionary in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked and no link can be made between Patrick and any church. By the eighth century he had become the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.

This is generally where most history is left off, but the genius of Patrick wasn't his story, it was the way he used common Irish flora (the clover) to describe to ordinary people the fairly complex make up of the Roman Catholic god.

The three leaves of the clover were a physical manifestation of the make up of God: The father, son, and Holy Spirit. So as the three leaves make up the whole clover, the father, son and Holy Spirit make up god. Pure genius. It was a concept that anyone could grasp just by looking at the clover.

If you get a chance to see his Cathedral, outside the Liberties in Dublin (yes, the place almost all Irish rebellions have started), its worth a look....Just make sure to see the nearby Guinness brewery afterwards...