Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick was invented in 1947 by Bord Fáilte to boost post war tourism to Ireland. He
was one of a number of ideas drawn up by a committee of civil servants between brunch and
tea-break. Other ideas included Fred the friendly goat, Jamesie the drunken
leprechaun and Tricksy the antisemitic badger. It was a close run thing but
a final round vote-off saw St. Paddy win.
However under the complicated d’Hondt formula,
Tricksy became responsible for the Republic’s strategic road planning authority – not the best
result in retrospect, but needless to say more acceptable than an antisemitic badger promoting tourism.
Now that they had a hero they needed to build up a story around him, accentuating all that is great
about the Emerald Isle, except there wasn’t much apart from the Catholic church and turf. We
managed to get a copy of the minutes from their next meeting between tea-break and coffee from the
national archives:
Right, we’ve got St. Patrick, now we need to brainstorm a story...
He was captured as a slave and shipped to Ireland.
Uh not a great start lads, but let’s see where this is going...
He was made to feed sheep for 6 years near Ballymena
Hang on, okay sheep, we’ve loads of them, but Ballymena!! You better change that to Mount Slemish so no one knows where it is. Right, go on...
He escaped to France or somewhere.
What! No don’t mention France, that’s far too nice, we don’t want people going there instead! He just spent 6 years with sheep in Ballymena for fuck sake....
...let me finish... he escaped to France, but was called back to Ireland in a dream!
Now that’s better! I dunno what you’re smoking but I like it. More dreamy call back shit, the Yanks will love it.
Ummm, he set up in Armagh teaching Jesus or something.
Teaching Jesus? Well it’s nearly time for a coffee so I suppose that will do, can we emphasise that there are no snakes in Ireland, tourists hate snakes.
We’ll say he magiced snakes out of Ireland.
Don’t be so stupid, nobody will believe that.
Okay then, he drove them out.
Aye that’s better, and we need some merchandise – what do we have loads of that’s cheap, what’s that on your shoe?
That’s dog shite, you wanna see the state of the carpet in...
No the other foot.
Oh that’s some weed.
Three leaves. That’s quite nice, that’ll do for a logo.
How about we have him buried in Downpatrick.
Why are all these places in the north? Sure we want visitors to come down here.
But it’s time for a coffee break.
Shit, so it is, aye bury him in Downpatrick - and clean those fuckin’ shoes.
So now you know how the legend of St Patrick came about. Of course, none of the above is true -
all we know of St. Patrick is that he was some mental foreigner who had a dream - a dream of transforming
a good pagan land into a God fearing offshoot of the Holy Roman Empire, from which it is only just recovering
thanks to Bertie Ahern selling his soul to Satan and anyone else who wants to buy a piece.
If you want to join us down in Custom House Square for a celebration email us at
no-tricolours-please-we're-british@randomshite.co.uk
