St Patrick’s crozier is in hock. It is an ignominious position for a saint who has worked so hard for his country
ST PATRICK is on suicide watch, The Irish Timeshas learned. It is thought he was referred by his GP to a psychiatrist several years ago. But St Patrick's health insurance had lapsed – his financial difficulties are well known – and, as a public patient, St Patrick's frequent phone calls to the large general hospital in which the psychiatrist was sometimes located went unanswered.
He subsequently learned that the general hospital had taken his GP’s referral letter, in which he had invested a great deal of hope, and flushed it down the lav. Last night St Patrick was in St Pat’s.
Friends have been growing increasingly concerned about St Patrick, who has been coming under increasing pressure of late. This phrase usually denotes someone who is on the back foot, in many instances whilst standing on an exterior windowsill. And, sad to say, so it has proved with St Patrick. Although cynics were quick to point out that St Patrick did not stand on a windowsill at any of the apartment blocks in which he himself has invested so heavily.
But surely no one will argue that the life of a patron saint has ever been harder. And surely no one could argue that, as patron saints go, any one of them has served his country better than St Patrick.
He invested heavily in property during the boom, buying houses and apartments not only in Ireland but also in Wales, Brittany and even Scotland.
But recently St Patrick has had trouble sleeping. The crozier is in hock. It is an ignominious position for a saint who has worked so hard for, and been worked so hard by, his country. St Patrick, notoriously sensitive, has felt this loss of status deeply. All those years schlepping down the main streets of America in the blistering winds of March. It was fun at first, but the shine has gone off the shamrock these days, according to sources close to St Patrick. Far from looking down in his love, as the lovely old hymn went, he has recently stopped taking the Sunday papers.
It’s not that St Patrick objects to us being poor – again. He loved us most during the centuries in which we were destitute, badly fed and flirting with cannibalism. As far as any patron saint who takes the long view is concerned, things have just about returned to normal.
No, St Patrick has other questions about modern Ireland, when he can bear to think about it. His behaviour has grown increasingly unpredictable, even delusional. For example, he insists on asking everyone he meets if they realise how riddled the Irish rich are with cocaine. St Patrick maintains that cocaine influences a great deal more of our public and media life – and indeed our business life – than has been previously supposed. St Patrick is currently under sedation.
Despite The Irish Times's plucky effort on its series Renewing The Republic, St Patrick has told close friends that he doubts if he has the energy for such an initiative. He claims that he spends his time trying to forget about the republic whenever he possibly can. He has begun, he says, to feel that he has been made an eejit of.
Take the ancient tradition of cabinet ministers going abroad in order to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. St Patrick has racked his brains to remember when exactly this started, and has failed to come up with any firm dates. He takes it rather ill when ministers disappear to New Zealand for a fortnight, paid for by public money, on the unassailably rational grounds that they didn’t go anywhere for St Patrick’s Day last year.
St Patrick feels that if our ministers were so damn dynamic and effective that a visit by them to a foreign country would increase inward investment then they would be twice as valuable at home.
Sources close to the Government point out that St Patrick has become increasingly irascible of late. He has stated publicly that he is bitterly disappointed about the whole Irish Christianity project, which he instigated all those years ago. It has not turned out at all the way he planned, he says. It is also true that the latest taxi drivers’ strike seems to have irritated him greatly; there was that nasty incident at a rank on O’Connell Street last week.
St Patrick himself has said he wishes to retire, but he is believed to have lost his pension in the downturn. He has also failed to find a replacement for himself, despite his repeated appeals, often nocturnal, to both Michael O’Leary and Packie Bonner, urging them to become the new patron saint of Ireland.
Last night a group of Irish doctors, on the telephone from Las Vegas, told The Irish Timesthat there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
They predicted a long period of rehabilitation for St Patrick, which would include group therapy. On being informed by The Irish Timesthat St Patrick was no longer a private patient, the doctors complained that the quality of the phone line had deteriorated, and said something about sinking and swimming, which The Irish Timescould not quite catch.
St Patrick was said last night to be resting.