I'm curious about our customs, and St. Patrick's Day is no exception.
What do leprechauns, green, and shamrocks have to do with Christianity? Like every other Christian holiday with bizarre non-sequeters, they only make sense when you understand where they really came from. So I knew St. Patrick's Day had to be no exception.
The three-leaf clover was a Celtic symbol that could repel evil spirits, and represented the three faces of the moon Goddess Maiden, Mother, and Crone. As was common practice, the Catholic church offered a Christianized interpretation for the custom being the three parts of the holy trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost.
Green was the color theme of the spring Celtic festivals celebrated in March, and now rebranded by the Catholics as St. Patricks Day.
Ireland never had snakes, but snakes were a Christian symbol of the Celtic religions which the Catholics called pagan (the Celts didn't call themselves pagans). St. Patrick is credited with abolishing the old Celtic religions and supplanting them with Christianity… and thus drove out all the "snakes" from Ireland.
Leprechauns are a relic of the ancient Celtic mythology.
Do I believe in the ancient Celtic religions? Of course not. It's human history… no different than Greek or Roman mythology, and everything "modern" man believes in now will someday fall into mythos as well. But rather than ignoring or abolishing our history, it's interesting to understand it.
 
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Origins of St. Patrick's Day.
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