A Saint known worldwide

March is a time for springtime, sports events and commemorating a Saint who is known worldwide.

Having family in and around Grant and adjacent counties, I’ve read the Grant Tribune-Sentinel about the many happenings which occur in the month of March, including the Perkins County Schools student art show and the arts council recreating the heritage of the “ barn quilt trail.”I wish all involved the best of success.

March is noted for “March Madness,” a month in which basketball fans grow ecstatic rooting for their favorite college basketball teams. 

It is also a time to remember a special Saint Patrick who is highly regarded worldwide not just in the Catholic Church, but in the Lutheran Eastern Orthodox and Anglican Communion churches too. 

Few people realize that he was actually a “Saint” in the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore, they are astonished to learn that he was born in Great Britain when it was under Roman rule. 

He wore the mitre (pointed hat) of a Bishop and was sent on a mission to Ireland to convert it to Christianity. 

It is believed he lived in the latter part of the 5th Century A.D., yet his influence extends to this day.

He reputedly drove the snakes out of Ireland. However, a common punch line is the response of: “all except the two-legged variety.”

The National Museum of Ireland has the “Saint Patrick Bell,” first noted in the “Annals of Ulster” in the year 552. What is interesting to me is that the makers mark “U INMAINEM” translates to “Noonan” who was a noted metalworker of the time.

The day, March 17, was chosen as his feast day, since it is believed that St. Patrick died on that day.

Only recently I learned that my great-great-grandfather, Peter O’Kelly Isley, who was born in North Carolina, but died in Nebraska in 1885 in Gage County, was of Irish decent. Many of his descendants migrated out to the areas around Grant and Ogallala. Others went to Graham and Yakima, Washington. Still others went to Wichita, Kansas and others, such as myself, migrated to Texas.

One of my second cousins in Nebraska will have his 86th birthday on St. Patrick’s Day this year. I wish him well.

But I also remind readers that this is one holiday where everybody can be Irish for a day. Let us also remember the Saint who inspired it.