St Patrick's Day and the Shamrock Plant - Forever Entwined

Both St Patrick's Day and the shamrock plant are instantly recognised the world over as a kind of shorthand for Ireland. But just how did the feast of a 5th-century missionary and the rather humble looking clover leaf achieve such status?

It all dates back to the Celts who lived on the remote far-western fringes of Europe (modern-day Scotland, Wales, Ireland, SW England and NW France) from about 300 BC. These early Celts attached great symbolic importance to certain numbers, and the most sacred and magical of all was number 3. Even their society was organised in threes; they had three classes, subdivided into threes, and their religious beliefs focussed on three main god and many lesser triple divinities.

No one knows exactly where and when this belief in the mystical power of 3 originated, but the young priest, Patrick, having previously spent six years in Ireland as a slave, would have been well aware of this Celtic idiosyncrasy and predilection for the number when he returned to Ireland as a missionary in about AD 430.

This is when the shamrock plant enters the story. Its name comes from the Irish word 'seanrog' meaning 'young clover' but there is nothing especially Irish about it (it grows in many countries). However, with its three leaves per stem, it was guaranteed to attract the attention of the Celts when, according to legend, Saint Patrick used it to illustrate the Christian concept of the Trinity ie how one God divided into three (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost) but remained one God.