I am looking for our Irish roots at Saint Patrick's Day [Opinion] | Antiques, collector's pieces and historical stories

It was said that everyone is Irish at St. Patrick's Day. I am proud of Pennsylvania Dutch, but the traditions around the St. Paddy Day are still worth exploring.

Dennis and I traveled to Northern Ireland and Ireland for the recording in 2014 to get a late honeymoon trip. We originally thought about doing a cruise in Alaska, but Ireland won the nod because Penn State played his football game in Dublin, Ireland on August 30, 2014.

We connected to Dennis' daughter and her husband, who lived in London at the time, and flew to Belfast, Northern Ireland. We went on a day trip along the north coast and then took a train from Belfast to Dublin for the game.

The Irish landscape was beautiful. It is easy to see why green and “wearing the green” are associated with Ireland. The landscape was lavishly with green tones in every direction that we looked like and often littered with great herds of pasture.

We were surprised at how cold the weather was for the end of August. We never had to wear the shorts that we had packed – long jeans, layered clothes and a raincoat, which was required. We also found that the harvests of wheat and barley that we passed past the railroad did not have to be harvested due to the short vegetation period in Ireland. Another thing that we noticed was that they wrapped their Balage in black plastic instead of the white plastic, which was typically used here in the states.

I like to remember our train ride to Dublin, where we had a conversation with an older gentleman who turned out to be a farmer. When we asked what he grew, we were shocked by his answer: strawberries and Brussels sprouts. That seemed to be a strange combination, but he apparently deserved his livelihood to raise these two harvests, so who should we question his decisions.

When I maintained with the friendly Irish people and admire their lush landscape, I take two things into account. First of all, the rural landscape reminded me of one of my favorite films in Ireland, the “The Quiet Man” from 1952, with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. My stepdaughter kindly arranged a side trip for us in the small village of Cong, where a large part of the film was shot and many of the buildings shown in the film remained. I guess my souvenir bought there-a small, framed watercolor of a scene from the film in which John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara go into town in a small horse-drawn carriage.

I was also reminded of Saint Patrick and wanted to learn more about this man, who is called the “apostle of Ireland”. According to Wikipedia, he lived in the fifth century AD and his mission efforts showed Christianity to the pagan people who lived in Ireland.

His life was anything but easy. Patrick's place of birth was controversial, but it is assumed that he was somewhere in England, Wales or Scotland. At the age of sixteen he was captured by Irish pirates and held as a slave in Ireland for six years, which served as a shepherd. The loneliness of this lifestyle supported his intellectual development through prayer and deepened his belief in God.

Patrick escaped after telling a voice that said a ship waiting to bring him home. He covered 200 miles in the harbor, persuaded the captain of a ship to give him passage and triggered after three days to go through a wilderness for 28 days. He passed out for hunger for divine help and was rewarded with a herd of wild boar.

At home, Patrick studied more about Christianity for several years until a vision with a group of Irish appeared to return to them. He sailed back to Ireland as a missionary, but was initially not welcomed. Thousands were attributed to him over time. He wrote about it in one of his books and said: “Never before knew God, except to serve idols and impure things. But now they have become people of the Lord and are called children of God. “

It is not surprising that in view of the many centuries that have passed since Saint Patrick and the heroic nature of his actions, a number of legends have been created over him. The Shamrock, a three -leaf Irish plant associated with the day of St. Patrick, is to be used by Patrick in his sermon to explain the concept of the Holy Christian Trinity. It was a plant with which they were familiar with and which supports their understanding of God, Father, Jesus, the son, and the Holy Spirit.

Saint Patrick was also celebrated for driving the snakes from Ireland. Apparently there were plenty of snakes there and after attacking Patrick while he was almost on a mountain, he chased her into the sea until her death. In a related story, he was bothered in Patrick's 40 days of fasting on the mountain of “black demonic birds”, which he distributed through a bell.

How much of these legends is and how much fiction may never cost; However, the celebrations for St. Patrick's Day remind us of heroism in order to share Christian faith in earlier times.