St. Patrick – Author Sarah Angleton

It was in the 5th century when St. Brigid of Kildare brought a problem of inequality to the attention of St. Patrick, who may not have particularly cared. Brigid’s complaint was on behalf of all the single ladies who kept waiting and waiting and waiting for a man to propose marriage.

It’s also said that St. Brigid once prayed for God to make her less beautiful just so she wouldn’t be pressured to marry, so the St. Patrick proposal stories may be a little off brand. Glaaaastonbury88, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

St Patrick set down his shamrock, swallowed the last of his green beer, rolled his eyes, and graciously suggested that every four years (except in years divisible by 100, but not by 400), when February 29th rolled around, it was okay with him if the womenfolk wanted to go ahead and propose to the men.

In one version of the story, a thankful St. Brigid immediately dropped to one knee and proposed to St. Patrick, but he was too busy driving the snakes out of Ireland to notice. Also the lives of Brigid and Patrick didn’t overlap that much, making her maybe five years old when this event allegedly took place and him not more than a few years from the end of his life. The story, either version, is a bit dubious.

But the strange tale got even stranger when in the year 1288 Irish monks brought the tradition to Scotland where Queen Margaret cemented into law that if a woman proposed marriage to a man on February 29th then he’d better either say yes or compensate her for her disappointment with a pretty silk dress or a nice new pair of gloves. That just sounds to me like a great way to get a free dress and gloves.

I could always use a nice new pair of gloves.
Image by 378322 from Pixabay

Of course Queen Margaret was at most only five years old when the law would have been written and there’s no record of any such law having ever existed. But regardless of where the tradition of women proposing marriage to men on leap day might have come from, there’s no question that the notion has been around for a long time in western culture.

The tradition showed up in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries where it mostly became the subject of ridicule. Today of course it feels a little silly because women in western cultures have more agency than ever and incidences of proposals from women to men are on the rise at any time of year.

I’ll really be spending my leap day preparing for the launch of my new historical mystery in just seven weeks. Watch this space next week for the full cover reveal.

Still, it feels like this strange day that has been popping up on our calendars more or less every four years, with only a few necessary tweaks, since 46 BC should be marked as special in some way. If nothing else, it feels like a stolen extra day and I for one want to make the most of it.

As a woman who has been happily married for going on twenty-four years now, it would probably be pretty inappropriate for me to propose marriage to anyone, but I guess I wouldn’t say no to a pretty silk dress or a nice new pair of gloves. I’ll just have to shop for them myself.

What are you doing with your extra February day?

Last week I got to do something fabulous. I took a quick girls’ trip to Florida with my sister, cousin, and aunt. And I did not take my kids or my husband. Not that I don’t like traveling with them. They’re really fun people. But this was a special trip to celebrate my sister’s birthday by hanging out on the beach and watching some baseball.

We went to Jupiter, Florida, spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals (and the Florida Marlins, but nobody cares), where we attended three games, played on the beach, explored a lighthouse with the most amusing tour guide I’ve ever encountered (but that’s another post), witnessed a rehabilitated sea turtle get released into the wild, ate a lot of cheesecake, and had, generally, a really great time.

FredbirdandSteve — Okay, so it wasn’t strictly a girls’ trip. Of course we had to take Steve the traveling sock monkey. He’s a huge fan!

And even though I didn’t take him with me, I could not have enjoyed such a trip without the efforts of my wonderful husband who rearranged his busy work schedule to hold down the fort for a few days, getting the kids to and from school, managing homework, keeping up with all the activities, and cooking dinner.

It’s this last part I may appreciate the most, because while I was gone, he cooked corned beef and cabbage. It’s a dish a lot of Americans will be preparing tomorrow in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, even in spite of the fact that it falls this year on a Friday in Lent and at least the dedicated Catholics among us should probably stick to fish.

I confess that not being particularly Irish, nor even the tiniest bit Catholic, I’ve never really known a great deal about Saint Patrick. I just know that if you don’t wear something green on March 17^th, someone somewhere will feel compelled to pinch you and that if you cook corned beef and cabbage in my house while I’m home (or possibly in the same state), your fate will be much worse than that.

It turns out history doesn’t yield up a whole lot of reliable information about St. Patrick, either. We know that he was born in Britain sometime in the last half of the 5^th century, that he arrived in Ireland as a slave at age sixteen (possibly kidnapped by pirates), made it back home six years later, and had a vision calling him back to Ireland as a missionary, where he proceeded to do all kinds of legendary things like preaching with shamrocks and driving out snakes. That’s where his story gets a little muddy, and may (as some historians suggest) get combined with another missionary known as Palladius who was in Ireland in the early half of the 5^th century.

But the lack of concrete details sure doesn’t stop us all from gettin’ our green on, even though the color more historically associated with this saint is actually blue. Historical stuff does tend to yellow with age, and Chicago goes to all that trouble to turn their river disgusting green, so I guess I’ll allow it.

The tradition that I can’t tolerate, however, is corned beef and cabbage. And frankly, I shouldn’t have to. Because Saint Patrick is as likely to have eaten corned beef as he is to have driven all of the snakes from Ireland (which, according to fossil records, never existed there in the first place). In fact, historically, Irishmen in general never ate much beef, the meaty part of their diet tending to be primarily salted pork.

If we really want to celebrate St. Patrick and all things Irish, then it’s bacon we should be eating. Now that I could get behind.

It wasn’t until the great influx of Irish immigrants into America in the 19^th century that corned beef became a St. Patrick’s thing at all, and that’s only because the meaty part of the American diet tended to be more beefy. Relatively cheap beef brisket was readily available to Irish Americans who settled in large numbers alongside the kosher delis of their Jewish neighbors, and so they convinced themselves, their descendants, and green beer-guzzling Americans from all walks of life that corned beef and cabbage is a good, Irish-y idea.

But it’s not.

stpathat — I’m not a total party pooper. I will wear this ridiculous hat while not eating corned beef and cabbage.

Still, Americans will fire up their crock pots, stink up their houses, and line up in droves to eat corned beef and cabbage tomorrow. And I’m sure those lines will include a lot of Irish and/or green beer-guzzling American Catholics throughout the country where many local dioceses (though far from all) have granted dispensations to their parishioners who wish to partake.

I can honestly say there’s not enough green beer in the world to make me want to participate in the tradition, and because I married a very smart and thoughtful man, I don’t have to. He had his corned beef last week. By the time I got back from my trip, the house had thoroughly aired out. Had it not, I’d not have hesitated to head back to the beach.