Food for thought, there fellow pagan.

I see this day as a time to honor a Catholic saint, who tried to peacefully convert the Irish to Christianity. He was not highly successful and was going to be lost to obscurity after his death, if it weren’t for some monks about 200 years later who decided to re-invent his image to bolster the support of the people. The conversion to Christianity was largely peaceful, and happened over the course of centuries. I think St. Patrick has been cast a hero and a villain, but in truth he was a good man, who believed deeply, and wished to teach forgiveness, like he had found within himself for the Irish who had enslaved him.

St. Patrick was enslaved for ten years. He managed to gain freedom, he sought out training as a missionary, he returned to the land that had imprisoned him, and he tried desperately to uphold Christian moral values. He did not kill. He did not harm. He spoke.

To me, his holy day is an opportunity to reflect on how our history is written and re-written to vilify and make the hero out of common men. I think we should be respectful, because we live in 2015, centuries removed, and we are pagans, and we have no need to turn a good man into a some monster. We’re better than that.

On top of that!

Snakes are likely not a metaphor for Pagans at all because that wouldn’t make any sense.

First of all, Saint Patrick was pretty good friends with a lot of Pagan Rulers, only a few of whom converted to Christianity.

Second of all there was no Irish word for snake at the time.

The word people refer to in relation to Saint Patrick is péist which does not mean snake.
It means Eel.

A huge proportion of of monster stories in ireland are about giant eels, to the point that the Irish for monster is Ollphéist which roughly translates as big ass eel.

In the time of Saint Patrick one of the functions of a Saint was slaying monsters (think Saint George and the dragon) and there is literally a story about Saint Patrick killing a giant fucking eel with his crozier.

There’s no way to say for certain, but the snakes almost definitely are not a metaphor for pagans.
The snakes probably aren’t a metaphor at all.
Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland is probably a translation for Saint Patrick killed a bunch of really big eels.