Sláinte! Celebrating the history of St. Patrick’s Day
March is one of our more curious months. In addition to knowing we need to beware the Ides of March, we have celebrated everything from National Grammar Day (the 4th) and Dentist’s Day (the 6th) to International Women’s Day (the 8th) and both Potato Chips and Pi on the 14th. (3.14 is, of course, the perfect day for “pi.”)
For the 31.5 million Americans who claimed Irish ancestry in the 2020 census — even our Irish-American dentists, grammarians and junk-food addicts — the month’s most important day is March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. That is especially important in Florida where the New World’s celebration of Ireland’s Patron Saint, a man never officially canonized a saint, began. In 1601 Padre Ricardo Arturo, the St. Augustine parish priest, sponsored the first parade in honor of San Patricio.
Like many who came to La Florida with the Spanish, Ricardo Arturo was actually an Irishman, Fr. Richard Arthur. During the generations when Irish Catholics could not own land, attend schools or hold office in their native land, many sought careers and fortunes in France and Spain. In France they founded wineries and one, Richard Hennessy, began distilling and exporting brandies. He succeeded so well that Hennessy Cognac is now the world’s best-selling brand.
The Irish who migrated to Spain became an essential part of Florida’s heritage. Miguel (Michael) O’Reilly and Thomas
Hassett, two of the many Irish priests who came to Florida, supervised the building of St. Augustine’s Cathedral from 1793 to 1797. Arturo (Arthur) O’Neill led Spain’s Hibernian Brigade, composed primarily of Irish soldiers, during our Revolutionary War as it supported the colonies by raiding English settlements throughout the Caribbean and eventually capturing Pensacola in 1781 to force the surrender of British troops in one of the two American colonies that remained loyal to England. .
For his service Colonel O’Neill was appointed the first Spanish Governor of West Florida from 1781 to 1792. Another Dublin-born Spanish officer, Enrique (Henry) White, served as Governor of East Florida from 1796 to 1811.
Our state’s Irish heritage is not, of course, solely military or ecclesiastical. We have four unincorporated areas (Hibernia, Shamrock, Dublin, Killarney) named in honor of the land the Romans called Hibernia, the land of winter, a place they considered far too cold to even consider invading. That may be why so many Irish citizens choose to hibernate in the Sunshine State each year, joining the 8.4% of the state’s residents who claim Irish ancestry.
Above all, St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of the man who in the fifth century transformed himself and Ireland. Kidnapped as a teenager and brought to Ireland as a slave, he escaped, became a priest, and returned as a missionary. Among all the legends about him, the most convincing ones have him converting the Irish to a new kind of Christianity, one that celebrated life and beauty and treated men and women equally. At the same time he convinced his adopted people to abolish and condemn slavery almost a millennium and a half before our country did.
This year we are especially fortunate that the acclaimed Winter Park Art Festival begins on St. Patrick’s Day. As we celebrate both, remember that the traditional Irish toast on St. Patrick’s Day is sláinte (slahn-cha [to your health]), although my father, especially as he grew older, preferred, “May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.”