Pattern is an Irish term meaning either a saint's feast day, or the various devotional activities that take place on the feast day at sites associated with the saint's life. It is thought to derive from the word patron, as in a patron saint.
A notable example of a pattern takes place on the eve and day of July 24 at Saint Declan's Ardmore, County Waterford. Patterns also take place in Tuosist parish, near Kenmare County Kerry, on July 8, the feast of Saint Killian, and at Urlaur in County Mayo on August 4.
Typically a pattern involved a procession by one or more communities to a nearby holy well named for a saint; the water believed to have medicinal healing properties. Patterns were a common part of Irish rural tradition until the reforms of Cardinal Cullen from the 1850s.
Famous quotes containing the word pattern:
“With only one life to live we can’t afford to live it only for itself. Somehow we must each for himself, find the way in which we can make our individual lives fit into the pattern of all the lives which surround it. We must establish our own relationships to the whole. And each must do it in his own way, using his own talents, relying on his own integrity and strength, climbing his own road to his own summit.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)