You have to wonder about St. Patrick, even on his “day.” Despite what you have heard, he is not a saint and not even Irish.

Maewyn Succat was born in A.D. 389 and couldn’t wait to change his name. His introduction to Ireland came at 16 when Irish pirates (never saw those words together before) came to his Dumbarton, Scotland, home, burned his house to the ground and kidnapped him along with half the town. His father was a nobleman who gave his son a comfortable life, which was about to change quite drastically.

Maewyn was taken to Ireland where he was sold as a slave to Miliucc, a pagan chieftain-king, who sent the lad to a mountainside in County Antrim to care for a flock of his sheep. The six years of solitude and despair left our boy with plenty of time to talk to the sheep and think about the Christian God that his grandfather talked about. Soon he started hearing voices which he took to be that God.

The voice, whoever it was, gave Maewyn the perfectly wise advice he was unable to figure out for himself: Hit the road.

Maewyn walked the 200 miles to the sea where he found a ship weighing anchor. Since the sheep gig paid very poorly, he had no money for the trip. He promised the captain, “I will pay you when we get there,” a promise heard – and rejected – by many a cabdriver and bartender. Somehow, our boy conned the captain into a free trip to France where he studied Christianity under Bishop Germanus of Auxerre and gratefully changed his name to Patrick.

Eventually he found his way back to Scotland, safety and family. But like many of us, he could not put Ireland out of his mind. Once you get there, they say, you start planning for your next trip before you leave. Patty was no different.

He started hearing those voices again. This time they told him to go back to the country which kidnapped him and kept him as a slave for six years. Many an Irishman has confessed to hearing voices (Especially on St. Patrick’s Day) but these voices told Patrick “We beg you, young man, come and walk among us once more.”

Against all advice, he returned to Ireland in about A.D. 430. He had a plan. It was a time when paganism featured such attractions as human and animal sacrifice, black magic and occult rituals to appease the Gods. Now, this man must have had some John Wayne in him, because as soon as his old captor Miliucc heard Patrick was back in town, the king burned his own castle down around him.

Patrick then went to Tara and took on King Loegaire and his druid priests Lochru and Lucetmael, who sent 27 chariots to kill our boy. According to legend, an unseen power turned Lochro on his head and forced the charioteers to attack one another. Legend holds that Lucetmael went up in flames and King Loegaire was Patrick’s first convert.

The legend of the Shootout at Tara spread and Patrick was able to walk the country safely for the next 30 years, converting thousands of pagans and founding hundreds of churches.

And that is how Patrick got his revenge. He died at Saul on March 17, 461, secure in the knowledge that his abductors would never forget him.

For the last 1,600 years, guilty Irish Catholics have gone to confession, risen early for Sunday Mass, gone to parochial school, and every single moment of every single day have carried around tons of guilt which make it impossible to celebrate the good old pagan rituals.

Forget the snakes.

St. Patrick drove the fun out of Ireland.

And Irishmen have been drinking heavily on every St. Patrick’s Day since.