“That none will be left behind”
Lá le Padraig 2025
Cobh
17 March 2025
My friends,
A well-known supermarket chain used to conclude their promotions with a jingle “For the way we live today.” A well-known journalist who wrote a book about our recent history and development entitled it “We don’t know ourselves.” There are many other anecdotes we could quote which all point in the same direction – that Ireland has come a long way in our recent past to become a modern, prosperous even sophisticated society. We have put a lot of old-fashioned things and ways behind us so we can project ourselves to the world as having come of age.
There is a lot of truth in these perspectives so that we can take some deserved pride in how things have progressed and developed.
St. Patrick’s Day or our celebration of it has changed too. We have gone from genuinely marking a National Day of Festival of our Christian heritage first gifted to us through the mission and preaching of Patrick to our forebears 1500 years ago to celebrating a caricature – plastic Paddy. The past celebrations were inspired by a genuine pride in that heritage of faith which inspired and shaped the lives of the generations past – through thick and thin.
Hindsight is a luxury for every current generation which enables us to judge, evaluate, criticize and praise how our forebears lived and what they valued. At this point in our history, we seem to be inclined to jettison so much of that faith heritage and do so believing we are better off for doing so. Only time will tell.
Wherever we stand on these changes we can all value the annual St. Patrick’s Day Festival for the opportunity it affords us to ask questions about our identity, culture and state as a people adjusting to the fast-changing world of the 21st Century. Patrick the migrant slave changed us as a people by his coming among us and making this island his home.
In the last decades thousands of migrants have come among us – for all kinds of reasons but all with the same purpose – to find work and a home for themselves and their families. Soon, 1 in 5 residents in Ireland will have been born in another land. This reality is changing Ireland. But this is not the first wave of immigrants to come here and eventually integrate. Ireland is a new and strange place for many who come here – in the same way it is strange and different for us natives.
The inspiration of the Christian faith that Patrick cultivated among and within us was to make the stranger welcome – as a blessing and gift. This can be difficult as we have witnessed in many places. Yet despite some friction great things have been possible when our sense of hospitality comes to the fore, which it has.
We cannot deny the ongoing challenge that integration entails. Resentment and hatred are often not far from the surface. It takes generosity of heart to restrain these forces.
As all these changes evolve in our lives, in our society we need to be alert to the kind of culture we are creating. If our focus is only on economic success many won’t be able to keep up to the pace and will be left behind. This year 2025, we celebrate a Jubilee of Hope to nurture a sure sense of purpose for all so that no one will be left behind.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
