Wearing Orange on St. Paddy's Day!

While I was growing up, my mother used to say, "Protestants wear orange on St. Patrick's." I also remember her giving me some additional information like, "we're Scottish...William of Orange is our champion, not St. Patrick" and so on and so forth. Since childhood, I've done additional reading and research and have sorted most of this thing out. I want to share it with you, if you were not aware of this phenomenon. Now, the stories I'm about to tell you are true; however, they should not in any way truly reflect our attitudes or opinions. If the majority of Americans wear green - when they aren't really religious or believers in St. Patrick at all - then we can, in jest, enjoy the story of why we should jubilantly wear orange!

First of all St. Patrick (if you don't know much his story): St. Patrick (5th century), the patron saint of Ireland, is one of Christianity's most widely known figures. But for all his celebrity, his life remains somewhat of a mystery. Many of the stories traditionally associated with St. Patrick, including the famous account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, the products of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling (probably a result of too much beer!). After more than six years as a prisoner, Patrick escaped. According to his writing, a voice - which he believed to be God's - spoke to him in a dream, telling him it was time to leave Ireland. To do so, Patrick walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast. After escaping to Britain, Patrick reported that he experienced a second revelation - an angel in a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than fifteen years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission - to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish - when Patrick arrived, many Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. Interestingly, this mission contradicts the widely held notion that Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland.

NOW, for William of Orange: Protestant Europe and England did, indeed, look to William of Orange (1650 - 1702) as their champion. In 1677, William had married the English Princess Mary, Protestant daughter of the Roman Catholic James, duke of York. After Jame's succession to the English throne, the Protestant William kept in close contact with the opposition to the king. Finally, after the birth of a son to James in 1688, he was invited to England by seven important nobles.

William landed in Devon with an army of 15,000 and advanced to London, meeting virtually no opposition. James was allowed to escape to France. Early in 1689, William summoned a Convention Parliament and accepted its offer of the crown jointly with his wife. The "Glorious Revolution" was thus accomplished in England without bloodshed, and it proved a decisive victory for the Parliament in its long struggle with the crown; William was forced to accept the Bill of Rights, which greatly limited the royal power and prescribed the line of succession, and to give Parliament control of finances and the army.

William's reputation is tainted as it's believed he condoned the bloody massacre of Glencoe in 1692. In Ireland, after William's victory over the exiles James at the battle of Boyne and the conclusion of the Treaty of Limerick, the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics were increased in severity.

Now, you figure it out....