A different view of St Patrick

The meme of Christianity was in decline on the Western fringe of Europe as the Germanic tribes of the Angles and Saxons and Franks swept aside the lingering Celtic-Roman society left behind by the Roman Empire. But, some carriers of the meme, personified in legend as St Patrick, made it to Ireland where it proved stronger than the pre-existing polytheistic Druidism, and from its Atlantic fastness it ultimately spread back East and Christianized the invading Germanics. I celebrate this today not so much because of the Christianity but because of the technology of Writing that accompanied it, setting Ireland on a literary course that ultimately lead to Yeats and Joyce and Becket and Heaney. Happy St. Patrick's Day!