ST Patrick’s Day is when the Patron Saint of Ireland is celebrated annually on March 17.

In celebration of the day, people can don their green outfits, gather in pubs and raise their glasses in celebration.

To shed light on this day, Durban Caxton Local Media spoke to Professor Donal McCracken, an emeritus professor of history at UKZN. He was a dean of arts at the University for 25 years, and was also Irish Universities Debating Champion.

He said St Patrick lived about 1 570 years ago. He was a missionary who is said to have converted ancient Celtic Ireland from its indigenous religious beliefs to Christianity.

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He said stories about Patrick range from him banishing snakes from Ireland to his use of the thee-leafed shamrock plant to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity.

Although McCracken said by the 1970s, there was a public holiday in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day, a parade in Dublin, but it was really only from the 1990s that matters became livelier.

“Indeed too lively sometimes – with green beer being drunk and noisy and raucous parties held. For many of the young, it became an excuse to get drunk, sing traditional Irish songs (some of them actually written quite recently) and wear cartoon green leprechaun uniforms with oversize bulbous green hats. None of this had much to do with St Patrick,” said the professor.

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On a more restrained level, McCracken said St Patrick’s Day is one when Irish people remember with affection the man who made so many of them Christian.

Asked about how the day is celebrated or the famous food that Irish people indulge in, he said others might eat Irish stew (a dish of lamb, potatoes, carrots and onions) and have a drink of Jameson’s Redbreast whiskey (definitely not Scottish whisky) or a pint of Guinness (a stout which used to be given daily to people recovering in Irish hospitals).

“The greatest thing about St Patrick’s Day is that it is non-sectarian. In Ireland, both Catholics and Protestants respect and celebrate him and, in fact, he is buried in the grounds of a Protestant cathedral in Downpatrick town,” added McCracken.

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