Irish exile and Hispanic monarchy

Igor Pérez Toast, Pablo de Olavide University

For a few decades, we have become accustomed to seeing in the street and in the news to people with a green -painted face, chest glasses and elf hats celebrating San Patricio’s day. Only in Madrid More than thirty activities are planned, from concerts to Gaelic football, through Churros and Irish dance. To this is added the green lighting of the cybeles and a parade of 40 bands and associations.

The current image of this holiday has popularized thanks to the great parades organized in Anglophone cities such as Boston, Chicago, New York or Sydney. Therefore, many people associate their globalization with Irish nationalism and with the great emigration of the nineteenth century. That wave was caused by The famine which caused a million deaths and forced another million and a half of Irish to emigrate.

However, the roots of the phenomenon are much deeper. They are linked both to the wars and revolts of the 16th and 17th centuries, which caused refugee crises in the Hispanic monarchy, and to the religious conflicts that ravaged Europe.

The first great Irish emigration

Until the 16th century, Ireland had been above all a place of arrival. During the Middle Ages, Vikings and Normans were established on the island, generating a very diverse society. In it coexisted cities under English control such as Dublin, great feudal manors as I KLDARE and Gaelic Closic Societies, such as the O’Neill.

The King of England only exercised nominal sovereignty and his law applied in a few places. However, this changed from the 1530 King of Ireland and imposed the Protestant reform, the English law and the authority of the Parliament of London to the entire island.

This process of centralization and religious change unleashed a cycle of violence that lasted until the mid -seventeenth century. During this period there were up to Felipe III from Spain in support of Irish Catholics.

One of the main effects of these wars was the migration and exile of tens of thousands of Irish, who went mainly to the territories of the Hispanic monarchy, the set of kingdoms and lordships governed by the Austrias.

In response to this refugee crisis, the Hispanic Monarchy and the host cities organized programs of aid. Assistance funds, military bodies and religious and educational institutions were created for exiles, such as the schools of Santiago, Salamanca, Leuven, Madrid or Seville.

These centers formed missionaries and scholars that They returned from incognito to Ireland. In addition, they served to vertebrar an Irish day community whose identity was built around the memory of religious persecution.

The reinvention of San Patricio

In this context of exile, the cult of San Patricio acquired a key role. Traditionally, he was considered, together with Santa Brígida and San Columba, one of the introductors of Christianity in Ireland. His invocation had been popular in the Middle Ages thanks to his relics, miracles and pilgrimages.

With the religious crisis of the sixteenth century, the cult of the saints was redefined by the reform and the counter -reform. Protestants abolished the cult of the saints, considering it superstition. In the Catholic field, it was tried to regularize it and Adapt it to the new counter -reform standards.

Irish religious in exile, such as Richard Stanihurst, Peter Lombard and John hangspromoted a new image of San Patricio. Aspects considered superstitious were eliminated, such as miracles of their childhood or the expulsion of snakes. Also his role as judge of the Irish in the final judgment. Instead, his figure as an apostle of Ireland stood out, comparing it to Moses. In addition, it was achieved that its holiday would be included in the Roman liturgical calendar.

In 1621, the exile Philip O’Sullivan Beare published in Lisbon the first History of Ireland. In it he explained that the Catholic resistance against military defeats and the superiority of the enemy was only possible thanks to the protection of St. Patrick. This idea was key in the construction of the identity of the Irish diaspora since the seventeenth century onwards.

The parade celebrations did not begin until the nineteenth century, when Irish emigration went to the Anglo -Saxon world. However, in the Hispanic Baroque, San Patricio enjoyed great acceptance and popularity. Appears in the life of saints written by the Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneirain the editorial success of the history of San Patricio de Juan Pérez de Montalbán and, above all, in the famous comedy of Santos de Calderón de la Barca, THE PURGATORY OF SAN PATRICIO.

San Patricio, a saint in continuous transformation

Since then, the image of San Patricio has continued to evolve. With the passage of time, intellectuals and artists made it a symbol of national resistance against colonialism and Protestantism. In Ireland, he has maintained his facet of prophet and maker of miracles.

Although few remember their origin in the wars of religion and the seventeenth century exile towards the Hispanic monarchy, today the day of St. Patrick is the National Festival of Ireland. Its symbol, the clover with which the Trinity explained, has also become the global Irish identity emblem.

Igor Pérez ToastResearcher responsible for the Pai Hum1000 Group History of globalization: violence, negotiation and interculturality, Pablo de Olavide University

This article was originally published in The conversation. Read the original.