Iowa
Old Press
Nashua Reporter
Nashua, Chickasaw, Iowa
March 15, 1917
IRELAND'S GLORY.
It was the foundation of St. Patrick's greatness that his
renovation of Ireland was not a revolution. He left old
institutions untouched, wherever they could be purged of a taint
of superstition. There were septs and clans, judges, bards and
kings before him, and they continued after him. He built his
church carefully. To disarm political opposition he appeared
straight to the heads of the clans. He aimed at the creation of
administrative clergy. He tried to give every community a place
of worship. At his death 365 churches lay along the roads his
journeys had taken; 365 bishops were distributed throughout the
land, 3,000 priests ministered to the spiritual wants of the
nation. He attempted to throw into the church thus suddenly
created a strong element of stability by systematizing it on the
models of the canons and making ecclesiastical law effective in
every department.
He did not believe in sanctity unassociated with education. Under
him religion created great monasteries and monasteries created
great schools. By those schools St. Patrick is a factor in the
history of Europe. Even before he went to Ireland he had seen the
days when Ostrogoths established themselves in Pannonia and
Thrace, when the Visigoths sacked the Italian peninsula from end
to end and carved out a Spanish kingdom within the domain of
great Rome, when the Huns rode their blazing course up the Danube
and the Rhine almost to the ocean; when the Vandals terrorized
Spain and crushed the power of the empire in northern Africa,
when the Salian Franks took firm grip of northern Gaul. His long
life stretches over a period during which the whirlwind of
barbaric invasions swept away all but a remnant of the ancient
language. But now the world went to Ireland, and the Irish
brought their school to the world. Religion, the ancient
classics, law, history, natural science, agriculture, manual
training, the use of implements and the forge, all came within
the scope of these intense and practical scholars.
Not without reason has the name of St. Patrick been held in
veneration through these many generations. There is nowhere a
teacher whose services for learning exerted so wide an influence
in a time so critical for all culture. There is nowhere a
statesman whose activity so completely reformed the character of
any people. There is nowhere such a national hero whose fame is
sounded across fifteen centuries and can still stir emotions of
enthusiasm far beyond his nation's shores. There is nowhere a
saint whose teachings are blended like his with the destinies of
his nation.
Irish Leaders in American History.
The Declaration of Independence has twelve Irish names. Matthew
Thornton, James Smith, and George Taylor were born in Ireland;
John Hancock, William Whipple, Robert Treat Paine, George Read,
Thomas McKean, Edward Nelson and Thomas Lynch were of Irish
parentage. The secretary of congress who prepared the immortal
document from the rough draft of Thomas Jefferson was Charles
Thompson, a native of Derry, while Captain Dunlop, still another
Irishman, printed it, and published it to the world. Captain
Dunlop was the founder of the first daily paper in Philadelphia.
Remember Native Land.
No other people coming to our shores have displayed toward their
native land a love more wholesome than the Irish. They keep their
children fed upon the tales of the fairies and "little
people" who are good to the good children, and whose wrath
descends upon the children who are not doing right.
Church and Tower at Kells.
The celebrated Book of Kells was written there in the sixth
century. This church is famous for its historical associations.
The town of Kells originated in a monastery founded by St.
Columba.
Ireland's Towers.
The towers, which are numerous throughout Ireland, have been the
subject of much controversy among antiquarians. They are thought
to have been used as a means of defense.
Four or Five-Leaved Shamrock?
Some say the four-leaf shamrock is the shamrock of luck, and
others say that it is the five leaved one that holds the magic
touch. This latter is rare and prized and said to grow from a
decaying body, as the nettle is said to spring from buried human
remains. The shamrock of luck must be found "without
searching, without seeking." When thus discovered it should
be cherished and preserved as an invincible talisman.
Many Irish Flags.
Quite a number of flags have figured in Irish history. Not the
least popular among these is the flag exhibiting three golden
crowns imposed on a blue ground. This flag was accepted after the
Norman invasion in the year 1170, as the ensign of Ireland, the
three crowns representing the kingdoms of Desmond, Ormond and
Thomond. It was retained until 1547 when Henry VIII abolished it
and substituted the harp.
Date of Saint's Death.
In his extreme old age St. Patrick wrote his
"Confession," which concludes with these words:
"And this is my confession before I die." He died at
Saul on the 17th of March, A.D. 465.
The roster of the revolutionary war is bright with Irish names.
General Montgomery was a native of Donegal. Lord Mountjoy in a
speech before the house of commons declared. "You have lost
America through the Irish."
In Education and Sports.
Among the Irish educators in America may be mentioned Horace
Greeley, William Rainey Harper and William Maxwell. The Olympic
games of a few years ago were planned by Sullivan Halpin and Mike
Murphy. Martin Sheridan, the great all-around athlete, is Irish,
and the national game of baseball is claimed as of Irish origin.
True to His Allegiance.
The Celts were the last of the races to accept Christianity, but
having accepted it, they cling tenaciously. The Irish Celt is
slow to adopt either religious or political innovations, but once
his allegiance is given, it is extremely difficult to shake it.
Presidents of Irish Parentage.
Presidents of Irish parentage were Thomas Jefferson, Andrew
Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Chester A. Arthur, and
William McKinley. Calhoun, also Irish, said "War may make us
great, but peace alone can make us both great and free."
For Fifteen Centuries the Reek Has Played Important Part
in Country's History.
It is in the month of July that the great annual pilgrimage of
The Reek takes place. The Reek, sometimes known as Croagh
Patrick, is the Mount Zion of the Emerald Isle. For on its summit
St. Patrick is said to have wrung from the angel many promises
for the salvation of the people he had made his own. For fifteen
centuries this mountain has played an important part in the
religious history of Ireland, and year by year people journey by
the thousands up the mountain, which is about 3,000 feet high. It
is a steep and difficult ascent, occupying the best part of three
hours, and most of the pilgrims make it in the evening, so as to
hold their vigil on the summit. There is a little chapel on the
mountain top. But it is so small that few can find a place
therein, and most kneel outside. The sermons preached are in
Gaelic, and the masses continue from daybreak until noon. St.
Patrick is on record as having visited the Reek in A.D. 441 and
spent forty days on its summit hidden from the world by the mists
hanging about the lower portion of the mountain. The legend says
that he was assailed by huge black birds, which only took to
flight when he rang his bell against them. The bell rolled down
the mountain, but an angel came and restored it to the saint. All
of the men of Erin heard this ringing of the bell, and it is
stated now that it is often heard again. Afterward St. Patrick
was visited by angels, and from their leader he wrested the
following pledges: That as many souls as should be saved as could
fill the horizon which he looked upon; that on every Thursday
seven souls and on every Saturday twelve souls should be freed
from purgatory; that whoever recited the last verse of his hymn
constantly should suffer no torments in the next world, and that
on the last day he should be appointed to sit in judgment on the
sins of Gael.
WHY THE SHAMROCK IS WORN
Worn Not Only in Honor of the Saint, but in Remembrance of Days
of Famine.
Who put a sprig of shamrock in their buttonhole on the 17th of
March realize that these little green sprigs more than once kept
the Irish from death in dire famine times. In 1596 the poet
Spenser declares that the war had brought the miserable
inhabitants of Munster to a point where they "flock to a
plot of watercresses or shamrocks as to a feast." This
"View of Ireland" he describes as the depth of ruin to
which a land formerly having abundant corn and cattle had been
plunged. The troublous times continued and the shamrock is
mentioned as an article of food again and again. Fynes ?arrison,
in 1598, writes that the herb is still "being snatched out
of the ditches for food." Withers in "Abuses Stript and
Stript" (1613) sings: And for my clothing in a mantle go And
feed on shamrocks as the Irish doe. Not until later was the
shamrock used as the national emblem of Erin. Nathaniel Colgan,
member of the Royal Irish academy, says the earliest record of
the "wearing o' the green" is contained in the diary of
Thomas Dinely, who wrote in 1687: "17th day of March yearly
is St. Patrick, an immovable feast, when the Irish of all
stations and conditions wear crosses in their hats, some of pins,
some of green ribbon, and the vulgar superstitiously wear
shamrogues, three-leaved grass, which they likewise eat (they say
to cause sweet breath.) The common people and servants also
demand their Patrick's groat of their masters, which they go
expressly to town, though half a dozen miles off, to spend, where
sometimes it amounts to a piece of eight or a cobb apiece, and
very few of the zealous are found sober at night." A later
reference to the wearing of the shamrock appears in the works of
Dr. Caleb Threlkeid, a botanist of the early nineteenth century.
He says: "The people wear the plant in their hats in
commemoration of St. Patrick, "believing that St. Patrick
used the three-lobed leaf to explain the Christian Trinity. This
belief is generally said by antiquarians to have arisen in the
fourteenth century, almost a thousand years after the time of
Patritius" who died in A.D. 403. In that year, says the
Annale of Ulster, "Patritius, the arch-apostle of the Scoti
(Irish) rested on the 16th day of the calends of April (March 17)
in the one hundred and twentieth year of his life, the sixtieth
year after he had come to Ireland to baptize the Scoti."
[submitted by C.J.L., March 2004]