Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Welcome to St. Patrick’s Day Feasting & Fun

I wanted to share a little on the history of St. Patrick’s day with you; the true meaning (and it’s not just beer related), share a couple of recipes with you, a little bit of my family history with my family crest and then a whole bucket full o’links that include food and printables…enjoy!

Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland. He helped bring Christianity to Ireland. Every 17th March, Ireland celebrates with a national holiday and holds festivals and special events to commemorate the man who reportedly banished snakes from the Emerald Isle.

Patrick was born in Kilpatrick in Scotland in the year of 387 A.D. Between the ages of fourteen and sixteen Patrick was kidnapped from Britain and brought to Ireland were he was sold as a slave to work as a Shepard on an Irish mountain range.

Ireland was full of Celts that were Druids and pagans during this era and as a slave he learned the Celtic Language which was spoken in Ireland at that time. Although he wasn’t a religious boy he did spend his time in captivity finding his faith in Christianity.

At 22 years of age, six years after being captured, he managed to escape from Ireland after having a dream from God telling him to leave. From Ireland he went into hiding in a monastery to harden his faith and it was during this time he took on the name Patricius, Pádraig in Irish (Patrick). In another dream he heard the people of Ireland calling “We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more.”

When he was in his 30′s he became one of the first Christian missionaries in Ireland. One legend says Patrick had met a Chieftain in Meath called Dichu who had tried to kill him but Patrick managed to convert Dichu to Christianity.

St Palladius was the first Christian to come to Ireland and introduce Christianity to the natives of Ireland. However, it was St Patrick who had made the biggest impact in the country by converting thousands of people by preaching the gospel. It was Dichu (now known as Saint Dichu) that gave Patrick a gift of a large barn that was converted into his first Church, located in Sabhall, County Down in Ulster.

Patrick with his disciples, Beningnus, Auxilius, Iserninus, and Fiaac, traveled all over Ireland teaching his faith, converting clan chiefs, building churches, opening schools and monasteries and convincing many Irish to become monks and nuns. Patrick preached all over Ireland for 40 years mostly in poverty and died on March 17, 461A.D in his Church in Sabhall, County Down.

Saint Patrick used Shamrocks, a three-leaved Clover, to teach the people of Ireland the concept of the Holy Trinity. The Shamrock has been associated with him and the Irish ever since.

On to some yummy recipes for ya:

Irish Potato Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of Irish butter
2 medium sized onions
3 large potatoes, washed & peeled
1 cube chicken bouillon
2 cups of milk
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon dried parsley
3 pieces of celery, chopped
1 pinch ground black pepper & salt
1 ½ cup of grated cheese

Directions:

Thinly slice the onions and potatoes and add to a pan with melted Irish butter.

Add the chicken bouillon, celery, dried parsley, garlic and season with salt & pepper.

Cover the pan allowing the vegetables to soften under a low heat, do not let them brown.

Add milk and mix until soup becomes thick then stir in cheese until fully melted.

Serve piping hot with a few slices of buttered Irish potato bread and enjoy.

Irish Potato Bread

Ingredients

3 oz plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 oz butter
8oz mashed potatoes
2 tablespoons milk
Butter to serve
Handful of scallions if desired

Directions:

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, rub in the butter using the fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Add in the scallions now if you are using them.

Stir in the mashed potato and enough milk to make soft but not loose dough. Roll out onto a floured board into a round approx ½ inch thick and mark into quarters without cutting right through the potato farl.

Place on a greased baking tray, and bake in the oven at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Serve hot with plenty of butter.

My Family History

In case your wondering, yes…I am a Irish Lass. Since both of my parents are deceased it’s a bit hard to find my geneology. But I do have bits and pieces and here is what I know. My Father was Jesse Roy Davis. The Davis’s are from Ireland. The Davis name is a spin-off of MacDavid (in our case). Here is some info on the MacDavids.

Recorded in many forms as shown below, this is an Irish surname, but one well recorded in Scotland. It is of medieval Irish origin, and derives from the Gaelic ‘MacDaibheid’, meaning the son of David, although how the hebrew name David came to be found in Ireland at all is a mystery. Today the surname is widely recorded as MacDavitt, McDaid, McDavid, McDade, Davison, McDevitt and others. In its homeland of counties Donegal and Derry, it is generally in the form of McDaid or McDade.

The family are said to have descended not from St David, the patron saint of Wales, although this is possible, but from David O’ Doherty, a chief of Cinel Conaill, who was killed in battle in 1208. It is said that the new clan grew to be numerous in the town of Inishowen. In its varied forms the surname is also fairly popular in Glasgow, Scotland.

Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to “develop” often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

My Family Crest

davis family crest