Quote:The ritual of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, what later became a manifestation of Irish nationalism and Roman Catholic observance, was actually established in the American colonies by Protestant Irish from Ulster, among whom were British soldiers.

Their first meeting and dinner to honor St. Patrick was an expression of their Protestant faith as well as their intention to bond with fellow Irish émigrés. Their 1775 meeting included British soldiers of Irish extraction. All proceeded, or marched, to the King’s Chapel to hear a sermon devoted to the occasion, and then continued on to a dinner in King Street.

No meetings by the Irish Charitable Society were held after this meeting in 1775 until 1883, because of the interruption of the Revolutionary War. One may guess on the popularity of British soldiers appearing in American St. Patrick’s Day parades after this event.

British soldiers were still the big show of the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City in 1762. The first celebration in New York City was in 1756, at the Crown and Thistle tavern. Philadelphia held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1771.

General George Washington issued a proclamation during the Revolutionary War, declaring March 17, 1780 a holiday for the Continental Army, then stationed in Morristown, New Jersey, in honor of the many soldiers of Irish ancestry and those born in Ireland. It was reported that this was the first holiday granted the troops in two years. Washington’s remark that the proclamation was “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence,” was possibly the origins of St. Patrick’s Day in America as an expression of Irish nationalism as much as Irish heritage or of honoring a Christian saint.

America's Irish Holiday has Protestant and British Roots

Quote:In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick's Day has traditionally been a religious occasion. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17.

Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government began a national campaign to use St. Patrick's Day as an opportunity to drive tourism and showcase Ireland to the rest of the world. Last year, close to one million people took part in Ireland 's St. Patrick's Festival in Dublin, a multi-day celebration featuring parades, concerts, outdoor theater productions, and fireworks shows.

Quote:
St. Patrick's Day is also frequently a time for drinking. It used to be that this tradition was strung out for at least five days, the so-called seachtain na Gaeilage or "Irish week."

That may stem from Roman times, when March 17 started the festival of the Bacchanalia, a celebration to the deity Bacchus, to whom wine was sacred. In olden years long gone by, the Irish drank mead, made from fermented honey. You might do better today with a stout Guinness, preferably dyed green.

Quote:The bacchanalia were wild and mystic festivals of the Roman and Greek god Bacchus. Introduced into Rome from lower Italy by way of Etruria (c. 200 BC), the bacchanalia were originally held in secret and only attended by women.

The festivals occurred on three days of the year in the grove of Simila near the Aventine Hill, on March 16 and March 17.

Later, admission to the rites was extended to men and celebrations took place five times a month. According to Livy, the extension happened in an era when the leader of the Bacchus cult was Paculla Annia - though it is now believed that some men had participated before that.

Quote:In Egypt, beer was regarded as food. In fact, the old Egyptian hieroglyph for "meal" was a compound of those for "bread" and "beer". This "bread-beer meal" plus a few onions and some dried fish was the standard diet of the common people along the Nile at the time.

Beer came in eight different types in Egypt. Most were made from barley, some from emmer, and many were flavored with ginger or honey. The best beers were brewed to a color as red as human blood. The Egyptians distinguished between the different beers by their alcoholic strength and dominant flavor.

None other than the god of the dead, Osiris, was hailed as the guardian of beer, because to him grain - both emmer and barley - were sacred. The Egyptians believed that grain had sprung spontaneously from Osiris' mummy, as a gift to mankind and as a symbol of life after death.

This was sufficient justification for the god-like pharaohs to turn brewing into a state monopoly and strictly license brewing rights to entrepreneurs and priests. Many temples eventually opened their own breweries and pubs, all in the service of the gods. The port of Pelusium at the mouth of the Nile became a large brewing center, and trading in beer became big business.

Egyptian Beer for the Living, the Dead ... and the Gods

Quote:Ra now realized that Hathor-Sekhmet would destroy the human race completely. Angry as he was he wished to rule mankind, not see it destroyed. There was only one way to stop Hathor-Sekhmet, he had to trick her. He ordered his attendants to brew seven thousand jars of beer and color it red using mandrakes and the blood of those who had been slain. In the morning Ra had his servants take the beer to the place where Hathor would viciously slaughter the remnant of mankind. Ra’s servants poured the beer mixture on the fields. And so, Hathor-Sekhmet came to this place where the beer flooded the fields. Looking down, her gaze was caught by her own reflection, and it pleased her. She drank deeply of the beer, became drunk, fell asleep, and abandoned her blood thirsty quest.
The Legend of Ra and Hathor

Quote:The religion of the Druids, as before said, was the same as the religion of the ancient Egyptians. The priests of Egypt were the professors and teachers of science, and were styled priests of Heliopolis, that is, of the City of the Sun. The Druids in Europe, who were the same order of men, have their name from the Teutonic or ancient German language; the German being anciently called Teutones. The word Druid signifies a wise man. In Persia they were called Magi, which signifies the same thing.
- Thomas Paine, Origin of Freemasonry

Quote:“The Celtic Church in Ireland and in Scotland owed its origin not to Rome, but to Egypt and the East; its customs, traditions, methods, government came from Egypt through Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary, Martin of Tours, Ninian, and through that religious channel, more than a little independent of Rome. The religious ideas of Egypt came to Scotland and Ireland and were absorbed easily into the tribal life of these countries.. There is no doubt that the Celtic Church owed its ritual, its architecture, its worship and its law to Syria, Egypt and Palestine, and that its allegiance to Rome was slight.”

Quote:This universal illumination of the houses on one night of the year suggests that the festival may have been a commemoration not merely of the dead Osiris but of the dead in general, in other words, that it may have been a night of All Souls.

For it is a widespread belief that the souls of the dead revisit their old homes on one night of the year; and on that solemn occasion people prepare for the reception of the ghosts by laying out food for them to eat, and lighting lamps to guide them on their dark road from and to the grave.

Herodotus, who briefly describes the festival, omits to mention its date, but we can determine it with some probability from other sources. Thus Plutarch tells us that Osiris was murdered on the seventeenth of the month Athyr, and that the Egyptians accordingly observed mournful rites for four days from the seventeenth of Athyr.

(03-18-2023, 03:19 AM)Michigan Swamp Buck Wrote: Ah, very enlightening. I was just wondering today what St. Patrick's day was about besides St. Patrick eradicating all the snakes in Ireland.

Would Osiris and the Celtic "Green Man" be the same? What of the "Jack in the Green"?

(03-18-2023, 05:19 PM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: Oh my, thanks BIAD for taking it above & beyond!! In my little understanding of all these beliefs, lore, & wild conspiracies I do find it quite fascinating. At the end of the day I really don't know what to believe anymore, but as the old saying goes, every myth has bits of truth and I suppose that is what keeps me engaged with it across its very broad spectrum.