Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Aidan - the UK Saint
It’s St George’s day but Dr Ian Bradley believes the UK needs a fifth saint that all of the UK can identify with. His candidate is Aidan, the founder of Lindisfarne. It is one of the suggestions in his new examination of modern Britishness, Believing in Britain: The Spiritual Idenity of Britishness. He argues:
“Aidan was the sort of hybrid Briton that sums up the overlapping spiritual identities of Britain.”
Fair Deal @ 10:25 AM
A hybrid Briton who spoke Irish, how on earth could unionism identify with him and what the DUP’s Sammy Wilson calls his Leprechaun language ?
Sorry Dr Bradley will have to come up with something else.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 11:03 AMGeorge, I understood Aidan was a Connaght man who found his way via Iona to Lindisfarne. I suppose that would make him a neat counterpoise to that well known Brit, Patrick ;)
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 11:12 AMI think he’s the same St Aidan who has a shrine and an RC church named for him at Magilligan in County Londonderry. The Protestant church nearby is St Cadan’s.
The shrine is just below Benevenagh mountain beside a ruined church taken over by the Protestants at the Plantation, and then returned by Bishop Hervey to the Roman Catholics in the 18th century.
The graveyard is the resting place for Protestants, Catholics, and Dissenters. On a wall you can see where a bored Norman soldier made a carving of a ship with his sword. There is a nearby wart well.
It seems to me to encapsulate the pre-Christian, pre- and post-Reformation strands of our history, and would therefore fit the bill admirably as an all-encompassing saint’s church. It’s also one of the most beautiful views in Ireland, looking down Lough Foyle, and across to Donegal. Nearby is the Hill of Drumceatt, where the other great Irish saint, Columba, held a historic convention in 575.
So sorry, George, this unionist has nothing but admiration for the suggestion. Sorry to ruin your one-dimensional caricature. Ireland civilised the British Isles, and beyond ( I hope someday to see the great Abbey at Bobbio). And I couldn’t care less if Aidan spoke Klingon in bringing Christianity to the heathens of England
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 11:42 AMI suppose that would make him a neat counterpoise to that well known Brit, Patrick ;)
Odd how some seem to think by pointing out Patrick’s ‘alleged’ origins (I appreciate Nevin’s remark was tongue-in-cheek), we (Nationalist/ Irish/whatever) are expected to splutter into our Guinness and go beetroot. Roy Garland declared him [Patrick] to be proud of his Roman-Britannic roots recently in the Irish News (Got a link for that, Roy?). Nobody cares. Message to all: It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at!
As for the subject of this thread, it should be filed away under an appropriate heading (along with my all-time favourite “Happy British Day"): ‘Tosser’s Corner’.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 11:48 AMdon’t see too many parades celebrating this day. is it a national holiday in Ingerland today?
I always wondered why they settled on St George, am i wrong in thinking he never even set foot in England?
As regards a UK wide Saint, i don’t know if its wise to have a patron saint of a piece of legislation, based upon a union many had and still have no wish to be part of.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 11:57 AMAm man in a pub told me that St George might have had an English accent.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 12:05 PMMust have been on the Absinthe !
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 12:13 PM*It’s also one of the most beautiful views in Ireland, looking down Lough Foyle, and across to Donegal.*
And equally looking across from the Greencastle/Shrove Head shore to Benevenagh is awe-inspiring. It must be the best kept tourist secret in Ireland.
Yeats wrote about Ben Bulben, people will wax lyrical about Galway Bay but you can take them all for my money compared to a beautiful summer’s afternoon looking out over Lough Foyle from the upper road above Greencastle.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 12:21 PM“...is it a national holiday in Ingerland today?”
No, Republican Stones, it is not. In fact most people are happily unaware that it is St George’s Day and less aware of any significance. The only support for its wider celebration tends to be from the BNP, The Sun, funny old real-ale swigging beardie English nationalists and lately Gordon Brown in an attempt to deflect from his Scottishness which I think he perceives (probably correctly) as an electoral liabiliy.
Anyway I am happy to sink a few with the old beardie loonies. They are pretty boring but harmless which I suppose might well also be said of myself.
Happy St George’s Day to all our English readers!
On the question of St Aidan - if he is to be adopted as patron saint of all of our islands should we not more appropriately drop the British Isles in favour of IONA (Islands of the North Atlantic) in tribute to the saint?
Oh, and of course we will have to have the pope ratify Aidan’s appointment otherwise it would not be kosher.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 12:33 PMAnd now that the Pope is a German it may be time to review/revise/change Germany’s patron saint who coincidentally turns out to have been the Englishman ‘Boniface ‘ They might want to look again at St Kilian who was apparently eaten by German cannibals for refusing to pleasure a German chieftains daughter. In Kilians honour there is I have heard a ‘blood red ‘ beer named after him?
BTW St Boniface restored the dioceses of Bavaria, Thuringgia, and Franconia. Evangelized in Holland, but alas was set upon by a troop of pagans, and he and 52 of his new flock, including Saint Adaler and Saint Eoban were martyred. (aside nice word that martyred sort of glosses over the gorey details which given Kilian’s fate is perhaps just as well).
In Saxony, Boniface encountered a tribe worshipping a Norse deity in the form of a huge oak tree. Boniface walked up to the tree, removed his shirt, took up an axe, and without a word he hacked down the six foot wide wooden god. Boniface stood on the trunk, and asked, “How stands your mighty god? My God is stronger than he.” The crowd’s reaction was mixed, but some conversions were begun.
Methinks Boniface knew that ye old shamrock three card trick /sorry three gods in the one voodoo sleight of hand would not work on the ancient Germans as the latter were not at that time anyway as advanced in fractional mathematics as were the 5th century Irish :)
Despite Bradley’s suggestion I think St George the ‘Turk’, David, Andrew, Patrick and Dennis (France) have been around too long in our various histories and myths .
Probably best to let sleeping saints lie .
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 12:51 PM“...is it a national holiday in Ingerland today?”
No, Republican Stones, it is not. In fact most people are happily unaware that it is St George’s Day and less aware of any significance.”
The flag of Saint George was flying outside the British Consulate in town here here today, alongside (but a little below) the diplomatic flag of the UK and the EU blue flag.
I wonder was this just run up by a local staff member disappointed at not being able to fly his flag during the upcoming Euro soccer tournament or was it due to government instruction.
If it was the latter, and one must assume it was, then I wonder a) will the Scottish and Welsh flags be flown on their patron saints’ days and more importantly b) what flag will they fly on Saint Patrick’s day?
That should confuse the locals.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 12:51 PMSt Jude springs to mind as a patron saint of the modern UK
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 12:59 PMIt must be the best kept tourist secret in Ireland.
Yes, Lough Foyle is the best kept tourist secret in Ireland, especially the Co. Derry shore, so would the two of you please shut up! I don’t want it ruined by the hordes of moaning English pensioners and ignorant Mediterranean teenagers who swarm all over the Causeway Coast!
only support for its wider celebration tends to be from the BNP, The Sun, funny old real-ale swigging beardie English nationalists and lately Gordon Brown in an attempt to deflect from his Scottishness which I think he perceives (probably correctly) as an electoral liabiliy.
You are forgetting slightly fuddy-duddy pipe-smoking suburban Tories who are also into wassailing and the sort of Anglo-Catholics who would be Roman except they’re too in love with the Queen.
But pretty much yes, as far as I know.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:10 PMQuite right, Sammy, I did forget the latter two categories that you mention - but then they are so eminently forgettable.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:14 PM“Message to all: It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at!”
Dec, would the PRM’s US base agree?
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:19 PMNevin
Finally, somebody drags SF into this thread.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:28 PM“Nearby is the Hill of Drumceatt, where the other great Irish saint, Columba, held a historic convention in 575.”
Are you sure about that, Darth? Perhaps it was held in Dalriada’s very own Drumcett, just east of Ballycastle, now better known as Drumahitt.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:33 PMI thought you would appreciate that, Dec. I dabble in genealogy so I appreciate the strong pulling power of roots.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:36 PMChekov
“Am man in a pub told me that St George might have had an English accent.”
I see what you did there.
I thought it was funny.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:51 PMnevin,
‘ better known as Drumahitt.’
The drums were always a hit in that part of the world :) So much so that the ensuing general deafness has enabled the people to talk to each other without having ever to hear the other side .
‘I dabble in genealogy ‘
How far back ? The Cambrian or Jurassic or are you strictly a Holocenian :)?
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 01:52 PMSteve,
‘St Jude springs to mind as a patron saint of the modern UK ‘
But only as emblematic of the status of Christianity on the island perhaps. He could however certainly be the saintly pin up for the NI Assembly. Not since King Canute assembled his court at the Wash and commanded the sea waves to return to DenmarkHere have we seen a larger conglomeration of lost causes brought together in one place.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 02:03 PMI see you’re still playing with the ‘pleistocene’, Greenflag ...
Drumahitt is adjacent to Drumahaman, you old ‘twister’ :)
Sadly, some loons set the Four Courts on fire and a lot of records were destroyed.
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 02:06 PMNevin,
Sadly, some loons set the Four Courts on fire ...
Don’t look too closely at this. The ‘loons’ were the pro-treaty side, I think, using guns supplied by their new friends, the British! If you call them ‘loons’ I fear you might start slipping over to the dark side ..
;-)
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 02:12 PMHorseman, would you not agree there was something of the dark about Collins? ;)
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 02:21 PMNevin,
I never knew the man personally, but I understand that the ladies were very fond of him (and vice-versa). Perhaps there was something ‘in the dark’ about Collins?
Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 @ 02:55 PM
