St. Patrick’s Shamrock

Sometimes, the miracle we seek is right there, right before us, and we miss it, preoccupied with what we think is the miracle. On St. Patrick’s Day – March 17 on the Gregorian calendar, March 30 on the Julian – we remember Ireland’s patron saint, who brought Christianity and died in 461 AD. Some think of leprechauns and four-leaf clovers. The real miracle is a three-leaf shamrock.

Statistically, four-leaf clovers are rare, often carried for good luck. The odds of finding one are 5000 to one, a five-leaf 24,000 to one, and a six-leaf 312,500 to one. But sometimes what everyone wants is not the real thing. The real thing lies elsewhere.

Young Saint Patrick, born “Maewyn Succat” in Scotland or Wales, got captured by the Romans – who ruled Britain – at 16 and made a slave. Taken to Ireland, he survived by hard work and prayer, escaping and traveling to southern France after about six years.

There, this inquisitive, grateful youth, good with people, studied and became a priest, resolved to return to Ireland, hoping to bring to that nation knowledge he had, bring them to Christianity.

In those days, like now, Ireland was awash in lush, green landscapes, beautiful. Legends, including the mischievous, often greedy, seldom trustworthy little red men – later turned green to match the shamrock and Ireland’s color – were thought real, with gold at the end of the rainbow.

Celtic mythology included demigods like Brigid and Cailleach. Like leprechauns, they showed up in unlikely places and at unlikely times, bridging this world and another, never quite clear on why, but part of the human quest for what we do not know and part of the Irish imagination.

Into this world came St. Patrick, resolved to offer facts, understanding, fortitude in overcoming fear, and ways – including prayer – to replace uncertainty with faith, foundational Christianity.

He was not, as you can imagine, initially welcomed. His life was threatened, he was beaten, robbed, and put in chains, but always escaped – as he had from slavery. He did not give up. He met resistance with persistence, doubt with patience, and talk of monsters with prayer and love.

In a relatively short time, he converted most of the nation to Christianity, causing greater unity, peace, security, and a growing flow of new clergy. He was revered in his time, although the Orthodox and later Catholic churches did not yet canonize saints, so he was simply loved.

The name Patrick was given to him, a derivative of the Latin “Patricius,” meaning “old father” or “father of the citizens.” He became, in the centuries after his life not just Ireland’s canonized patron, but a cause for celebrating Ireland’s identity, faith, and fortitude.

At mid-Lent, St. Patrick’s Day took off in the 1600s, generating feasts, celebrations of his life, and of life itself, through services, festivities, and parades. Commemorations and wearing the “St. Patrick’s Day Cross” – a Celtic cross, a circle at the center – grew more common.

Interestingly, the first St. Patrick’s Day parade was in 1601, in St. Augustine, Florida. Then, starting in 1952, the Irish Prime Minister began presenting to the US President each year a crystal bowl filled with shamrocks, three-leafed clovers, or shamrocks. That brings us back to the start.

That three-leafed shamrock is, you might say, a miracle.  They are everywhere in Ireland, on every hill and in every vale, far more common than their four-leafed cousins. That is why the three-leafed shamrocks were used by St. Patrick … to illustrate The Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to the Irish people.

The three-leafed shamrock is God’s iconography, right there in every Irish yard, meadow, and swale, a timeless reminder of his presence, promise, and salvation. 

So, as you reach for your green this St. Patrick’s Day, do enjoy the libations, feast, and celebrations, but ponder too life’s little mysteries, why a shamrock has three leaves, covers Ireland’s hills, why St. Patrick ended up there, found the shamrock for his flock. Sometimes a miracle is right there before us. We just have to see it and smile.  

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.