The Luck of the Irish

Oh yes, I’ve been Lucky. Winning a trip to Ireland definitely makes me lucky.
But is it really true, that the Irish are blessed with luck?

You hear the word luck & you automatically think of gold & riches. But the irony of the phrase ‘the luck of the Irish’ is that it actually relates to poor fortune rather that good, bad times not happy times, & centuries of losses not winnings. 

How many of us as kids, spent hours on the front lawn, looking for that elusive four leaf clover?  Hoping to find that one 4-leaf amongst 10,000 3-leafs, knowing that if we did find it, we’d have ‘the luck of the Irish’ forever.

 

I did find the elusive 4-leaf & looking for a heavy book so as to press it flat, I placed it, like a treasured keepsake, between the pages of a Bible.  And therein lies another irony, because the 3 leaf clover was the inspiration that St Patrick received from God, to explain the Trinity to a people who commonly believed in Druids & magic.    Superstitions around the 4 leaf clover are many.  One being that it symbolises God’s melting of the Druids beliefs with those of the Trinity & Christianity.  Druids apparently believed that the 4 leaf clover could heal the sick & ward off evil.

 

Irish soldiers conscripted into the Bristish Army, began wearing the Shamrock on their uniform lapels because they had been Blessed by St. Patrick & believed they were on God's side & therefore safely protected by Him.

Whatever your beliefs, the superstitions surrounding the Shamrock are many and varied, from providing you with faith, hope, love & luck, warding off evil, giving you good fortune & even enabling those who wear it to see fairies!

 

I'd like to think of my shamrock as a Blessing, because it helped me find my 'pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow'..... & surprise, surprise!... I found that 'pot of gold'  in Ireland.