37. St. Patrick Gets Kidnapped, Roman Britain, late 5th C.

Paul Henry -- Launching the Currach — “Launching the Currach” (Paul Henry, c1911, National Gallery of Ireland) shows us why, when the Irish pirates captured the young man who would become St. Patrick, they were not using currachs. Later, some currachs would have masts and sails and be somewhat bigger. But in the late 5ch century, really, you needed ships, if you were going to go kidnap hundreds of people from Roman Britain and take them back to Ireland.

In honor of St. Patrick’s day, we have no snakes, no druids. We talk about Irish pirates capturing young Patricius, which was a crime, and then St. Patrick being all remorseful about something which was some sort of crime but nobody knows what it was, and then, having done all that, we talk a whole lot about St. Patrick movies, including a silent film from 1920 with which we are totally impressed, and another from 2000, which involves David Tennant and has us bemused. Also there is information about currachs, which have nothing to do with St. Patrick being kidnapped. Happy St. Patrick day!

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