I love this!! The alternative look at Ireland's patron saint and the snakes as metaphor. (Love the green snake in the photo, too.) I don't know enough about pre-Christian Ireland, but even a thousand years after the time of Jesus, we had the Vikings. From Norway-ish lands, they spread into England, Ireland, and even Paris, raping and pillaging, killing and burning. That Norse panthology came with some weird rituals, like sacrifing a perfectly good human to appease the gods. As if those gods were ever appeased. (As if any god ever has been.) At least Christianity taught kindness, compassion, and taking care of one another (in a vaguely communist way). Then came the Crusades. Ugh. So much for Christian kindness and non-violence. The Old Testament was brutal, especially with Samson setting fire to those foxes... but I digress. This is intriguing: a time of druids and ancient customs, of passage tombs and standing stones, when the female deity was supreme, when nature overruled man. Sounds like Celtic religions were considerable less brutal than Viking rituals and traditions. Gotta Love this line: Let us welcome home the 'snakes' who should never have been driven away.