From: Sun Herald in MS
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/living/11105777.htm

"St. Patrick won over Ireland with faith

St. Patrick is the stuff of truth and legend. Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between the two.

Anyone who knows of St. Patrick knows that he chased the snakes out of Ireland. It doesn't matter that ancient records and archaeological digs show no evidence that snakes ever lived there.

Every good Irishman or every good Irish-American will tell you that in trying to explain the Holy Trinity, he plucked a three-leafed shamrock stem to make his point.

Magonus Succatus Patricius, as a teenager, was snatched from Roman Briton and turned into a herder-slave in Ireland. He was the son of a town councillor-deacon and grandson of a priest.

Young Patrick escaped servitude but returned around A.D. 432 after a dream revealed that the pagans of Ireland should be Christianized. He accomplished that with his caring, persuasive personality.

Modern scholars wonder if St. Patrick is actually several people rolled into one.

No matter who he was or what he may or may not have done, St. Patrick remains Ireland's spiritual champion, both for Catholics and members of the Protestant Church of Ireland. When they immigrated, these Irish brought their love of St. Patrick to America.

Historically, Irish immigrants were among South Mississippi's early settlers, and more arrived later during the Great Potato Famine. Many of the first ones were laborers, often indentured, but they and their descendants soon added to the region's economic and political backbone.

These immigrants credited their bigger-than-life St. Patrick with the Irish sense of humor, warmth, understanding, tenacity and strong faith.

- KAT BERGERON"