St Patricks Day has grown to something that celebrates not only the connection to the Irish but all Australians searching for a poor excuse for a beer. Some interesting things about St Patrick’s Day that people should know. St Patrick was not Irish, he was a Roman-Britain-born Christian missionary. When he first turned up he didn’t really get on with the Irish. He is like most Australians in our nation - an immigrant with a great desire to make the country he went to a better place. He had a close association with nature and saw God in the world around him.

He obviously was a brilliant theologian and I hate to say it, but I don’t think he drove the snakes out of Ireland, I think the weather did that. St Paddy’s Day is a celebration of the immigrant, the naturalist and the philosopher, the person who asks you to reflect on your life and question what it is all about. It is also a very good excuse to have a beer and for storytelling of outrageous semi-plausible stories.