♪ -Welcome to "Joseph Rosendo's Travelscope," where you join us as we accept the world's invitation to visit.

-[ Chuckles ] Come with me.

Today on "Travelscope," I continue my journey through Ireland in the footsteps of Saint Patrick.

I celebrate Irish history, food, music, dance, and have great crack with new friends on Saint Patrick's Day.

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♪ -In part one of my Ireland adventure, I started out on the Way of Saint Patrick at Navan Fort...

I'm on my way.

...and discovered that Patrick's Christian conversions were not always enthusiastically accepted.

Well, he has these crazy notions of there only being a single god.

-He is not a friend of mine.

-No?

-Well, he does not like the woman healers.

He calls us snakes, and he wishes to get rid of us.

Has Patrick made headway convincing the Irish Celts?

He laid the foundation for Armagh to become the ecclesiastical center of Ireland, where his day is celebrated in music, song and dance.

-♪ Oh, oh ♪ ♪ Ah ah ah ♪ -[ Singing indistinctly ] ♪ -[ Singing indistinctly ] ♪ [ Up-tempo music plays ] ♪ ♪ ♪ -Wherever he walked, Patrick gained followers, established holy sites, and inspired myths and legends, such as the abundance of Saint Patrick's Wells.

During Patrick's time, it was a place to baptize people.

And nowadays, the site has evolved to where the legend surrounding it is that if you have any skin problems and you put your hands in the water, you can cure them.

And Saint Patrick's Chairs, where miracles can happen.

If I sit here and make a wish, it will come true.

During the first part of my journey along Saint Patrick's Way, I traveled through many of Northern Ireland's cultural... Sláinte.

-Sláinte.

-Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

-And to you.

...historic... and scenic sites.

♪ And just before Saint Patrick's Day, explored Belfast, the formerly troubled and now vibrant capital of Northern Ireland.

-Happy Saint Patrick's Day from Ireland!

♪ From Belfast, I followed Patrick back to his beginnings in Ireland.

On the 1,500-foot Slemish mountain, tradition holds, he was a slave tending sheep for six years.

It's here he received divine guidance and escaped to his family in Roman Britain, from where he returned to Ireland in 432 A.D. to start his missionary work.

Today, Slemish is a pilgrimage site and, at sunrise, an excellent place to honor the beginning of Patrick's saintly path.

[ Flute plays ] [ Sheep bleats ] There are two official ways to follow in Patrick's footsteps.

Saint Patrick's Way is an 82-mile pilgrim walking trail from Armagh to Downpatrick, through places related to Saint Patrick and Ireland's Christian heritage.

The trail is a 92-mile driving route between Bangor and Armagh, that links sites with connection to Patrick's life and legacy.

Both present a sampling of Northern Ireland's most historic and scenic locations.

[ Bell tolls ] This sculpture represents the Bangor bell.

And the church behind me is on the site of the original Bangor Abbey.

Now, these are monasteries that were established after Saint Patrick or by those who followed in Saint Patrick's footsteps.

Just like we're doing.

On his mission to bring Christianity to Ireland, Patrick left a string of monasteries in his wake.

There were ultimately over 550 monasteries, abbeys, and friaries in Ireland, keeping the Christian fires burning.

The ruins of Nendrum, created by Saint Mochaoi, one of Patrick's followers, is located on an island in Strangford Lough, where Patrick began his missionary quest.

-There's lots of history in this area.

This is Nendrum, the monastic site.

-A little bit after Patrick, but along the lines of the kinds of things he set up.

So, John, Patrick would have came onto the lough when he came back, coming up into here.

Would he have had a problems getting in here?

-Well, he would have struggled because he would have come up from the Irish Sea, he would have come up the Narrows, which is where basically you see Strangford and Portaferry.

And you get the fast currents and big boils.

It would have been really difficult for him to come up through the narrows.

-Rather than stay in comfort and safety in Roman Britain, in 432 Saint Patrick answered his vision of the Irish, calling him to, " Walk again among us."

Patrick's way back followed a watery trail.

His boat crossed the Irish Sea into Strangford Lough, landing at the mouth of the Slaney River.

He lived off the local agricultural bounty.

And at Tracey's Farmhouse Kitchen, we still reap rewards from the land he walked.

I'm in the home of Tracey Jeffery, and we're in Strangford Lough.

Let's get started.

-Okay.

-Looks like we have flour here, but it's a special kind of flour.

-Yeah, so, it's called soda bread flour.

And the grains that make the flour -- the wheat grows in the fields around here.

-And what are we making?

-We're going to make two breads.

-Two very, very easy breads.

-Very easy.

-And very quick breads.

-Very easy, quick, and totally delicious.

So, the first thing we're going to do is make some fruit soda.

And we're not weighing anything or measuring anything.

-Perfect for me.

-Okay?

So you're happy with that.

-So it doesn't have to be exact.

-Doesn't have to be exact at all.

-What a wonderful gift.

-Yeah.

Okay?

You're going to start with a gopin of flour.

-Well, how much is a gopin of flour?

-Get your hand right in there and get a big handful.

-Is that a gopin?

-That looks like a good gopin.

And to that flour, you're adding a handful of dried fruit.

Then, mix it around, and then you're adding your buttermilk, just bit by bit, until you get the texture you're happy with.

And you're looking for, eventually, kind of a sticky dough.

So, then what we're doing is we're shaking some flour onto the table.

So, go ahead and be quite generous with your -- Lovely.

And then you're scraping out your dough with your spoon onto the table, and then you're bringing it together with your hands.

And that's exactly what you do.

Tuck your hands in below it like you're making a bed.

-Okay.

-That's it.

-And then slam it out with the heel of your hand there.

Lovely.

Perfect.

Now, you look at that and think, "Gosh, that's not a perfect circle."

-Oh, it isn't.

-We call that rustic.

-It's rus-- Yeah.

That's a good...

So, if it's not perfect, it's rustic.

-It's rustic.

So, as it is, this is called a cake of soda bread.

-Yes?

-And we're going to cut it into farls, and that means a quarter, Or one fourth.

-Oh, so we cut it into quarters.

This is kind of a diagonal farl.

-That's perfect.

We don't want them to be exactly perfect, do we?

-No, then it's no longer rustic.

-No, that'd be boring, wouldn't it?

-Yeah.

-That's it.

So you get your four farls.

So, what you want to do is take your fish slice, and you're lifting the first one.

And then, before you put it directly on the griddle, go from hand to hand and get the excess flour off.

-Oh.

-That's it.

And then set it on your griddle.

Perfect.

Lovely.

-So, same thing?

I got too excited with the flour on that one.

-Well, it's better to have too much than too little.

It's traditionally part of an Ulster fry.

-Oh.

-And so we would have the soda bread and the potato bread as part of a fry.

We would have that with plenty of our lovely homemade, creamy butter.

This has dulse in it.

-This has dulse in it.

And if you don't know dulse -- whoops... -Yeah.

-...it's basically seaweed, and it has a nice little salty -- salty taste.

That's the reason I dropped that.

-Yeah, It's delicious.

-So I could then eat it.

-[ Chuckling ] Yeah.

So, once you're soda bread is on the griddle, it will start to rise in front of your eyes.

And within 4 minutes, it will be ready on one side and you turn it over.

Lovely.

-That's music to my ears.

That's music to my ears, as well.

That's lovely.

-So, we're here for Saint Patrick's Day.

So, what does Saint Patrick mean to you?

-Saint Patrick really, to me, actually means what it always meant as a child, and that was climbing Slemish mountain... -Oh.

-...because that is where he tended to his sheep.

We always used to sing the song to Saint Patrick in Irish.

♪ Hail, glorious St. Patrick, dear saint of our isle ♪ ♪ On us, thy poor children, bestow a sweet smile ♪ ♪ And high in the heavens, look down on with love ♪ ♪ Duh-duh-duh duh-duh duh duh Saint Patrick ♪ something or other.

-Hey, great.

That's wonderful.

Thank you.

Let's see how our breads are doing.

As we wait for the fruit soda bread to cook, we use a similar process to make Irish stout wheat and bread, which is simply much more of a good thing.

So we have the Irish stout wheaten bread, and we have fruit.

-Yeah, that's it.

-The dulse butter, too.

So, sláinte.

-Sláinte.

Oh, very good.

[ Laughs ] [ Soft music plays ] ♪ Ireland is famous for its myths, legends, and stories.

And there is no tale with more traditions associated with it than the history of Saint Patrick.

All roads lead to Downpatrick, a residential community of about 11,000 people just 21 miles from Belfast, with serious Saint Patrick connections.

According to tradition, he is buried, along with Saint Brigid and Saint Columba, in the Down Cathedral Cemetery.

And he began his Christian conversions nearby.

Inhabited for at least as far back as 130 A.D., Downpatrick is one of Ireland's most ancient and historic towns.

Much of the area's history is on display at the Down County Museum, housed in the former jail, where from 1796 to 1830, around 400 prisoners were transported to New South Wales, Australia.

Among the town's other non-Patrick attractions are the Downpatrick and County Down Railway, Ireland's only full-sized heritage railway, which takes you to the 12th-century ruins of Inch Abbey, and within a stroll of the Mound of Down, the pastoral remains of an Iron Age defensive earthwork.

♪ Yet the legendary star of the settlement is Saint Patrick.

And to get as close to the truth as you can, a visit to the Saint Patrick Center in Downpatrick is a must.

♪ Ah, the final stamp on my Saint Patrick's Way pilgrim's walk.

-We always say that archaeology is where you dig stuff up, but history is where you write things down.

The story of Ireland begins here in Downpatrick, with the story of Saint Patrick.

That's the original story of Ireland.

-You attribute that to him because of his confession, what he wrote, that this is the first time we get some written history of Ireland?

-That's right.

So Patrick tells us quite a lot about himself through his writings.

So you can come here to Downpatrick, to the Saint Patrick Center.

It's the only permanent exhibition in the world about Saint Patrick.

You actually get inside the head of Saint Patrick.

You're hearing his voice.

-I, Patrick the sinner... We have the Irish actor Ciarán Hinds, who takes you around all of the different parts of our exhibition.

So you get to know all about Saint Patrick, his story, and his mission.

So, Saint Patrick is someone who we can all buy into.

He's someone from Britain who became the patron saint of Ireland.

You can't get any more cross-community than that.

-And you depict that story, you tell that story, you illustrate it in rooms like this -- like the whole legend of Saint Patrick and the snakes.

-Yes, so, Patrick is banishing the pagan gods, represented in serpentine patterns.

We don't have snakes.

Haven't had snakes since the last ice age, 10,000 years ago.

So it was a kind of a later legend also that was written by the medieval monks.

-Everybody find a use for Patrick.

-They do.

And he's changed many times.

He was useful to the early monks when they were promoting Armagh.

He was useful to the medieval monks and knights whenever they were creating Down Cathedral.

And of course, for the Irish diaspora and people going abroad, they used them as well.

And now Saint Patrick's Day is the largest cultural event worldwide.

-In keeping with that idea, we're here in Ireland to see how Saint Patrick is celebrated.

What does Saint Patrick mean to you?

Well, for me, and I think for what we're trying to promote is the idea of reconciliation and bringing people together.

Ah.

-I think charitable giving is a huge aspect that we could add on.

So if we're going to have snakes and shamrocks and green beer, that's great.

But let's add the charitable aspect to it and do something really positive on Saint Patrick's Day.

♪ -The parade has been going on how long here in Downpatrick?

-It's definitely going on as long as I've been around.

So it's at least 40 years.

And it's always been at its core, a community festival.

And that's what we were trying to do, what we're doing with our floats.

So we have six floats, and they're all based around Irish mythology.

And so this is the myth of Manannán mac Lir, who is the Irish sea god.

-We've met this character before on our trip up here, along the coast.

-This is a float we've put together.

It's a bit of a comedy value in it, depicting Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland.

We have an actor, and he is holding a big bucket of rubber snakes and throwing them out to the crowd.

-Terrific.

-And we have a lot of children who are going to be dressed like snakes, running to hand them out, trying to get back onto the island again.

-We'll look for it tomorrow.

[ Up-tempo Irish music plays ] ♪ The music that we're going to be dancing to -- I mean, how did it come to be?

-The Irish have danced and been involved with dancing, singing, and music all their lives, so that Irish dancing goes hand in hand with Irish music.

We actually still dance to some of the music that's centuries old, which is great.

That's fabulous.

Is there anything about those steps that are connected to the culture?

-Well, during the time whenever we weren't allowed to dance and we weren't allowed to sing -- -There was a time?

-There was a time.

There was a time, and in the Penal Laws... -Ah.

-...the Irish, very cleverly, tried to hide the fact that they were dancing.

So they had a half door on their house.

-Ah.

-And they would have opened the top half of the door; they would have kept the bottom half closed... -Right.

-...their hands by their sides.

-Right.

-But underneath, behind that door, they were...

It became part and parcel of Irish dancing that this became very important.

And then the rhythm and the dexterity and the fastness of the feet was what Irish dancing became all about.

-Okay.

-Alright, this is the step that we do with our 4-year-olds when we bring them into class.

So, no pressure, Joseph.

-No.

-Steady.

-None whatsoever.

-Okay, so, this is the step/ -I'm kind of like a 4-year-old.

-[ Laughs ] -I'll be like this.

-Alright, so, always feet together.

-Alright.

-Turned out.

Alright?

-Okay.

-And then you're going to point your right toe, okay?

-Mm-hmm.

And you're going to do right, 2, 3.

-Oh, right, 2, 3.

-Change.

Left, 2, 3.

Are you ready?

1, 2, 3.

Up, 2, 2, 3.

Up, 3, 2, 3.

Up, 4, 2, 3.

Up, 5, 2, 3.

Up, 6, 2, 3.

Up, 7, 2, 3.

And 8, 2, 3.

Whoo!

Fantastic!

♪ -Oh, fabulous!

Session is a traditional music -- Irish music.

-Tunes are the common language.

These guys know hundreds of tunes.

-It's a great sound.

It's a great sound.

And the traditional instruments would be these here?

-Yes.

♪ -Okay, here we go.

"Merrily Kiss the Quaker's Wife."

[ Laughs ] Life sounds good already.

♪ ♪ ♪ Ah, that's beautiful.

[ Applause ] Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

-And yourself.

♪ Saint Patrick's Day dawns with an extravagantly beautiful sunrise, complete with rainbows.

The words of Saint Patrick ring in my ears.

"Would that you, too, would strive for greater things and do better."

Of all the sights that we visited on Saint Patrick's Way, Saul Church is the most important.

In 432 A.D., Patrick returns to Ireland, driven by the dreams he has of the Irish people calling him to come back.

He lands at the mouth of the Slaney River and comes up here to this hill and meets a tribal chief, who he converts and who gifts him with his barn as a place for him to preach and begin his conversions.

So it's from this site that Patrick spreads Christianity throughout all of Ireland.

The church that's on the site was built in 1933, and on Saint Patrick's Day, there is a communion service here and a procession that goes from here to the cathedral in Downpatrick.

[ Choir sings indistinctly ] ♪ ♪ [ Bagpipe plays ] ♪ ♪ As you know, we're on the Saint Patrick Way, which is a walking trail.

There is a motorized trail called the Saint Patrick Trail.

But this is Saint Patrick Way, and you've actually done the Saint Patrick Way.

-I did it yesterday.

Finished in Downpatrick yesterday afternoon.

-How long did it take you?

-Eight days in total.

-And along the way, are there accommodations that are set up for people doing the Way?

-No.

-No.

-It's not like the Spanish Camino.

There's no accommodation.

In fact, that was the hard part of the planning, really.

But we source them eventually.

-So, what was the highlight of your 80 miles?

-Your second day through the Mournes and occasionally to see the sunshine.

[ Both laugh ] -That's kind of the experience we've had.

-Yeah.

-But it's Ireland.

If you didn't have rain, you couldn't have rainbows.

And was it a spiritual experience?

-It was for me.

-Yeah?

-And I walked part of it with my brother, who is probably 180 from me, who's a nonbeliever.

-Ah.

-And we spent a little time trying to get to him.

[ Both laugh ] Whether we were successful or not -- whether I was successful or not -- I don't know.

-He should have been with us this morning.

He would become a believer.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Love your shamrock.

-I'm quite envious of it, actually.

-Me, too.

[ Bagpipes play ] ♪ ♪ [ Soft music plays ] ♪ ♪ ♪ [ Applause ] [ Hymn music plays ] "It is there that I wish to spend my life until I die," Saint Patrick's said of Ireland.

He got his wish, and on the day of his death, Saint Patrick's Day, a wreath is placed on his grave at Down Cathedral.

♪ [ Men and crowd shout back and forth indistinctly ] So, this is Saint Patrick's Day in Downpatrick, the home of Patrick, where he lived and where he died.

It's local, it's fun, it's family.

It's terrific.

Wow!

-These are the stars of the future.

-Yeah!

-Whoo-hoo!

[ Up-tempo music plays ] -How you doing?

So, here are the floats in actual use.

Who's this guy?

-This is Donn Cúailnge and that's the Brown Bull of Ulster.

-Who's the other guy?

So, this is the Irish Neptune.

-Yeah.

-How you guys doing?

-Alright.

[ Indistinct shouting ] -Should we be afraid of you?

Yes, yes, yes.

Obviously, we should.

This is great.

Is this exactly what you wanted?

-Yeah, this and more.

-It was great.

-This and more.

Okay.

Because it's like a community, you have all the kids here, all the schoolchildren and myths and legends.

-Irish myths and legends, yes.

-Happy Saint Patrick's Day, brother.

-Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

♪ ♪ -Whoo-oo-oo!

-At day's end, it's traditional to drown the shamrock with friends... -Sláinte!

-Sláinte!

and drink in Saint Patrick's peace, love, and blessings.

♪ Thank you for joining me on my Saint Patrick Ireland adventure.

Saint Patrick is the patron saint of all Irish people -- north, south, east, and west.

He exemplifies the Irish spirit of persevering in the face of untold obstacles and always striving to create a better life.

I've been on Saint Patrick's Way through Northern Ireland, which has had its fair share of troubles.

These days, Belfast, Armagh, Downpatrick and the rest of the villages and towns of the North are a magnet for travelers in search of breathtaking scenery, natural and manmade attractions, authentic activities, outstanding food and drink, and good crack -- a great time.

Around the world, Saint Patrick and Saint Patrick's Day mean different things to different people.

Yet in Ireland, celebrating the day and Patrick's works is just one more way for the Irish to welcome you to their glorious home.

Till next time, this is Joseph Rosendo reminding you of the words of Mark Twain, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

Happy traveling.

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-From travel tips and destination explorations, to exotic adventures and intimate tales, "Musings: The Short Happy Pursuit of Pleasure and Other Journeys" is a collection of entertaining, humorous, and inspirational stories drawn from my travel and life experiences.

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What does Saint Patrick mean to you?

-He is our patron saint.

We are very protective of him.

And we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day all over the world.

-Religiously, everybody owns Saint Patrick.

You know?

-Yeah, yeah.

-And he gives us all a great spirit.

-It gives an opportunity for people in our community to come together and celebrate something that identifies us also.

That's what amazes me.

It means about unification and coming together and to celebrate the day.

-A beginning of a spark of change that would eventually reach across the island and, of course, across the world as Christianity begins to spread further and further.

-Saint Patrick has got common ground for us all.

And if we could revolve around Saint Patrick, We'd be a much kinder people.

-Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

♪ ♪