My tiny efforts to celebrate the feast included; wearing a green velvet dress, and matching green suede shoes with cream-coloured floral lace tights. Going to Westminster Cathedral where Archbishop Vincent Nichols celebrated Mass, and during Mass I sat by the St Patrick’s chapel in the cathedral and saw the candles flicker gold onto the green marbled shamrocks in the chapel.
Later, the queues for Irish pubs were a hundred metres long in Soho. It's good to celebrate, and have everyone pat you on the back for being Irish. But yesterday, I lost count of the amount of people who said to me ‘this is your day for getting drunk! You Irish just drink all day on Paddy's day.’ People from all around the world commented that they had studied 'the myths of St Patrick' in school.
From Ecuador to Italy to New York, many people in their twenties said that they had learnt the ‘legend’ about how St Patrick drove out the snakes in Ireland. St Patrick obviously has a firm place on school curricula all over the world. But if his life, mission, miracles and legacy are thought to be made-up fables, what use it is celebrating his feast day?
Maybe this individual got marginalised:
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