From the archives: Folklore of the shamrock and St. Patrick’s prayer
By Tom Gillespie
AN article on the folklore of the shamrock appeared on the front page of The Connaught Telegraph on Saturday, March 16, 1901, and it read as follows:
Every Irish home, mansion or hovel, has its garden, and often a winsome bit of shamrock is (says the ‘American Home Journal’) found there, or hidden amid the purple and white woodbine roots that cover house-wall, roof and eves with their climbing shamrock in the generic name in Irish and Gaelic for trefoil.
While clover seems to be the popular native idea of the flower, and as Ireland’s national heraldic emblem, it ranks equally with England’s rose or Scotland’s thistle.
It is often confounded with the yellow clover, but the spiral from its pods is a distinguishing feature, and like wood sorrel or bird’s foot trefoil, it is a plant with three leaflets.
Woodsorrel in Italian is called Alleluia and many of the Italian painters, from Fra Angelica down, placed the plant and its flower in the foreground of their crucifixion pictures.
The purple-hued blossoms were supposed to have taken their colour from the blood of Christ.
The Welsh call these lovely white, purple-veined flowers ‘fairy bells’, and the country people believe the elves ring them for moonlight dance or revelry.
Yellow trefoil is the plant sold mostly in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day. Old women and flower girls call out: “Buy my shamrocks! Buy my shamrocks!” And all little children have St. Patrick’s crosses pinned to their selves; but the common white clover is oftenest called the Irish shamrock. The oxalis shares with it, however, the credit, and exotic specimens have yellow, white, rose-coloured, crimson and variegated flowers.
According to the legend, St. Patrick, while teaching the doctrine of the Trinity to the pagan Irish, used the plant with its three leaves upon one stem to illustrate the great Mystery, and it was thereafter worn as a badge, and finally adopted as an emblem.
On March 17, the ‘chosen leaf’ is worn in the hat all over Ireland.
The ‘wearing of the green’ by ‘all these whose hearts are true’ commemorates the landing of St. Patrick near Wicklow in the beginning of the fourth century of the Christian era. The event is a favourite in inspiration to all Irish bards. The Irish Druids held the shamrock in great repute, and believed it to be a charm against witchcraft, and the ancients portrayed hope as a little child on tip-toe, holding one of these flowers in his hand.
From the earliest time this plant has been connected with the heroes of antiquity and mythological gods, and later with saints of the Church.
The Germans long regarded the clover as sacred and the ancient Greeks used it profusely in their festivals.
A leaf of four-leaved clover in the Middle Ages presupposed detection of evil spirits, or dropped into a person’s shoe, it assured a safe return from a journey. It was also said to have cured disease and lunacy.
A pretty Irish legend says the shamrock is magical, and that if the dew upon it be drunk of a morning before the sun is up, it will ensure one’s happiness all day. Often a sprig is stuck over the doorway to keep ‘ould Nick’ away o’ nights’.
It has a bearing on heraldry as well as a popular belief, and, though it is a much disputed point whether the clover or wood sorrel is the genuine shamrock of St. Patrick it is the clover which is the ‘club’ of the pack of cards, the same figure being called trefle in France.
On the same page in the 1901 edition was the following:
St. Patrick’s Prayer - A Legend
Far in the West in Ireland,
Croagh Patrick’s peaks arise,
And lifting high their summits,
Kiss Connaught’s laughing skies;
And viewed from Clew’s bright waters,
Cloud-wrapped they disappear,
The sun-tipped heights proclaiming -
‘God’s Majesty shines here’.
’Twas on this lonely mountain -
The ancient legend tells -
St. Patrick oft at eve-time
His hymn of praise would swell;
With tears would beg his Master
To gladden Erin’s day,
And soften hardened Pagan hearts
With Faith’s enkindling ray.
And oft from highest heavens
God’s angel hither come,
To grant the blest Apostle
The gifts his prayers might claim.
And back to his bright mansion
Each time the angel flew;
The holy man would chart him
With weighty players anew.
One eve as the twilight deepened
He begged with fervent heart
That come what might of Erin,
With Faith ‘twould never part,
Though every other nation
From Christ could turn away,
By God preserved, His chosen race
Would ne’er in darkness stay.
Then came the flashing angel,
With lightened-winged stroke,
And standing near St. Patrick,
In stern-toned numbers spoke:
“Know ye not, Holy Bishop,
What blessings o’er and o’er
The Infinite hath given thee?
Why ask you then for more?”
“And know ye this, bright angel,
That here I kneel and pray,
Till speeding back from Heaven
The boon is mine, you’ll say.
And O ye holy peoples!
In supplication bend, ye trees!
Beseech the Fount of Love!“
Thus prayed all night unwearied,
Nor ceased when daylight broke,
Nay, prayed till deep’ning shadows
Again the night bespoke.
Till once again the angel
Winged to the Mount his flight,
And bathed the kneeling figure
In pure celestial light.
Rejoice! I bring good tidings,
Great joy attends thy prayer;
In Faith thy Isle lives ever,
Thus doth the Lord God swear!
Nay, more, thine the Power Sovereign
He solely claims or may -
Thy people thou alone shall judge
When dawns the Dreadful Day.”
- Theodore Vincent.