That time of year again...

Dare I say it? There doesn't seem to have been too much silliness in the run up to St Patrick's Day as there has been in previous years... Not so much as a whisper of genocidal maniacs, no yelling about snakes or druids... Is it too good to be true? Am I being a little premature?

Either way, I figured it might be a good time to do a round up of some links and videos that might be of interest. I'll start with a little humour:

Although alas, I've no idea who to credit for it... If you take a look at the Paddy Not Patty Twitter feed, you'll see it's all very SRS BZNSS. People are very attached to ole "Patty." Incidentally, the guy behind paddynotpatty.com has been interviewed here, it's good stuff!

This time of year marks the first anniversary of Gaol Naofa's Youtube channel, and the first couple of videos we did back then focused on various aspects of St Patrick's Day. Our first video looks at the harmful stereotypes vs. the realities that often come hand in hand with the day:

While the second video takes a look at the history and misconceptions surrounding the man and the saint, from the snakes as druids (except not!) to the idea of some pagans celebrating it as a "Day of Mourning" as a result of these misconceptions:

Fellow Gaol Naofa colleague, Sionnach Gorm, wrote a great article to accompany the videos as well, asking the question:

How do we, as devout polytheists, reconcile the historic reality that our ancestors (at some point in the 5th-6th century CE and with no evidence of coercion) chose to turn to a god of bells and tonsures, of monks and scriptures, of Rome and the Papacy? Why would they “abandon” the gods of their ancestors, and choose this newfangled Christ and his missionaries?

You can read the article on the GN website here.

Last year I kind of nearly reached critical mass on the whole business, but I might as well link to the post I wrote then, because it ties in neatly with Gorm's article and the videos. Seeing as the videos and the posts touch on Sheelah's Day, which falls on March 18th and traditionally marks the beginning of spring and the end of the wintry storms at this time of year (just as Là na Caillich does in Scotland, on March 25th), I might as well link to a post giving an overview of it that I did a couple of years back. 

Kathryn and I are currently working on overhauling the festivals section of the Gaol Naofa site, expanding on what's already there for the Quarter Days and adding articles for the "lesser" festivals in Gaelic Polytheism as well, including one for Sheelah's Day. In the meantime, we already have a video on Sheelah's Day and Là na Caillich that might be of interest:

Elsewhere on the web, there's a great post on the Vox Hiberionacum site announcing a new audio guide on St Patrick called Six Year's a Slave, with a bit of a historical overview about the man himself there. The audio guide looks really interesting!