Saint Patrick, Missouri, gets festive for a St. Paddy’s Sunday

SAINT PATRICK, Mo. (WGEM) – Whether you have Irish heritage or not, you might have been out and about on Sunday in festive green, or pinched if you weren’t.

Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations were taken up a notch in one Tri-State town this weekend. Especially since the Catholic tradition fell on a Sunday this year.

“They know we’re a very small town,” said volunteer and resident Myrna Daughtry. “But when they come here and they see the shrine, and of course our beautiful stain glass windows, they are just in awe.”

There’s a little town in Clark County, Missouri called Saint Patrick, and it’s the only one in the entire nation named after the Irish legend known to free snakes from the country. Every St. Paddy’s Day weekend, hundreds of people gather there to celebrate and to tell stories.

“I enjoy the people who come,” said Shrine of St. Patrick’s pastor Father Rob Fields. “Particularly the people of the past, the families who come back.”

Some activities for the day included a Holy Eucharist, a Historical Preservation Award for the Shrine of St. Patrick, a Leprechaun 5K, listening to Celtic tunes, and a potluck supper.

“Maybe St. Patrick himself is smiling down on us and saying, ‘Thank you St. Patrick, Missouri, for keeping my spirit alive,’” said Mike Whiston, whose father built the shrine. Each year, Whiston tells stories about it from his earliest childhood memories.

Whiston said this day is especially important to help raise money for the historically preserved church.

Locals say, if you stop into town this month, send a postcard.

“As a way to memorialize the mail that was coming through St. Patrick’s really small post office, they raised money through applying a (Shamrock printed) cancellation to help build the shrine,” Daughtry said. “That cancellation has been on all mail going out of St. Patrick in the month of March since 1936.”

Next weekend, St. Patrick will host an annual road bowl. That’s exactly what it sounds like. People take bowling balls and roll them down the road.

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