Therefore I should give unceasing thanks to God, for He has often been forgiving of my carelessness and stupidity. —From Saint Patrick’s Confession, Number 46 I can’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day without thinking of Croagh Patrick and I can’t think of Croagh Patrick without thinking of the June afternoon that I climbed Ireland’s holy mountain. “Croagh” —pronounced…
I am Patrick, a sinner, the most unlearned [rustic] and least of all the faithful and utterly despised by many. —Saint Patrick, Confession One Sometimes I feel less-than. When I do, it’s often because I’m painfully conscious of how uncultured I am, keenly aware of my rusticitas. Like Saint Patrick was. Cousins and friends have earned Ph.D.’s and my…
“He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills giving forth anything but the soft syllables of Irish, just as only certain forms of German could be spoken on the high crags of Europe; or Dutch in the muddy, guttural, phlegmish lowlands.” -Alexander McCall Smith, Portugese Irregular…