Happy St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick was not Irish, nor did he drive the snakes out of Ireland, and he probably did not write the prayer attributed to him.  Patricius was British and from a Roman family.  He was kidnapped from his home when he was sixteen and became a slave in Ireland for six years before he escaped.  He then returned to Ireland as a missionary bishop and basically transformed Ireland.  Thomas Cahill in How the Irish Saved Civilization claims "within his lifetime or soon after his death, the Irish slave trade came to a halt, and other forms of violence, such as murder and intertribal warfare, decreased." 

And that's why Chicago dyes its river green every year.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!  God bless St. Patrick, God bless us Irish, and God bless you.