Reclaiming St. Patrick's Day as a Modern Witch

As someone who is a little “attached” to their Irish heritage and has a lot of fun family memories tied to the holiday, I definitely feel a bit torn when it comes to the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. I will say this, since I was maybe 13, St. Patrick’s Day has been my favorite holiday, green has been my favorite color, and I celebrate the holiday at least twice if not 3 times a year. Lately in my personal practice, I find myself leaning more and more into working with the Goddesses of Ancient Ireleand. So, how then, can I as a witch, celebrate the holiday that is literally marked as “the day St. Patrick drove out the Pagans?” Through the art of reclamation.

I am sure many of my readers are familiar with the art of reclamation, but for those who are not, reclamation is the practice in which an oppressed group takes a mark of their oppression such as a slur and gives it new meaning within the community. So when we talk about reclaiming St. Patrick’s Day, we need to give new meaning to the holiday. Instead of looking at St. Patrick’s Day as a day of eradication and disrespect, we should look at it as a day to remember our strength.

This leads us to the new ways we can look at the meaning of St. Patrick’s Day. An intrinsic quality of witchcraft holidays is the energy that we can access and use for our spellwork. I think we can draw energy from the places on this day. The first is the Leprechaun. Leprechauns or the luchorpán for the ancient celts, is an Irish fairy. For those who believe in the ancient Magick of the Tuatha de Dannan (the Gaelic Gods) a Leprechaun would be called an Aos Si. They are not associated with luck, but they are associated with trickery and gold. Yes the Leprechaun used his quick wits to escape all his captors and protect his gold. I highly don’t recommend ever playing around with one. The next is the Magick of Clovers. Yes the shamrock and the four leaf clovers actually had meaning for the Ancient Druids. The shamrock enhanced psychic abilities allowing people to see evil spirits. The four leaf clover is believed to provide magickal protection and ward off evil. This power rings true in our kitchen herb cloves. The third place we can draw meaning is from the effort to dispel the druids, pagans, and witches from Ireland by Christianity. Clearly they failed in their efforts or I would not be writing this right now as a descendant of a long line of psychics and witches. Take the day as a sign of resilience and strength.

Ideas to try today:

1. Money Spells

2. Luck Spells

3. Strength Spells

4. Wards

5. Banishing