Firstly let me wish you all, Irish and want-to-be Irish, a Happy Paddy’s Day! I have to say however that I was never a huge fan of the day, what is there to be excited about? Dancing kids, tractors with green balloons(how inventive) and marching bands clog hopping to out of tune tubas, oh and don’t forget the local football team walking in chaos behind the obligatory vintage car. Seriously do you think you would watch that assembly of mayhem on any other day? No, but for some reason it is so invitingly cute on March the 17th we all get involved. We brave the cold, wave the flag and paint pretty little shamrocks on our cheeks all in the name of Irish-ness. Then we drown the shamrock  get blind drunk, start a fight and play the fiddle…. well that is what those who perform like the monkey at the circus will do, happy to allow the world clap the happy-go-lucky Irish into their stupor. But what about the true spirit of St Patrick, the essence of what became known as the island of saints and scholars, a nation that held the beauty of scriptures and art while the rest of Europe plunged into the Dark Ages? A people who fostered great minds in monastery and monk cell across this green land. Well that essence is still alive, still holding onto the wit, the warmth and  vision to reach out as a light to a darkening Europe. We are a people with a God shaped shamrock in our heart, a people that have unshackled the burden of religion from our necks and are ready to breath the air of pure Christianity again….that may not fit into the performing monkey the world want to drown with Guinness tonight but it is a people worth celebrating……