I think it's fair to say that in modern, secular Ireland, not many of us really believe that the country owes its snake-free status to St Patrick.
Yet a far greater miracle takes place in the holy man's name every year, and nobody bats an eyelid. I refer, of course, to the vast accumulation of people - ranging from 500,000 to 700,000, depending on the weather - that is said to attend the St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, peacefully and without incident. This year, the organisers' estimate came in at a modest 650,000, which is so precise you know it must be true.
For the first time in several years, I was one of the multitude. Earlier this century, I devised a cunning St-Patrick's-Day-parade escape plan, which involved volunteering to report on the Cheltenham Racing Festival instead. Yes, it was an extreme move. But having covered the events of March 17th annually since the previous century, I was desperate for a way out.
At any rate, the plan worked perfectly for four years running. Memories of Paddy's Day in Dublin had all but faded. Then this year, somehow, the calculations misfired. When I flew back from Cheltenham late last Friday, I was horrified to find it was still only March 16th.
After four days in Prestbury Park, you want to avoid crowds for a while. Unfortunately, my family had other plans. The children had been gripped by parade fever all week. When they woke me on Saturday, five hours after I went to sleep, they were already dressed like excited Americans who had set foot in the old country for the first time. Sleeping in would not be an option, it was clear. So a little while later, carrying a heavy heart and an even heavier step-ladder, I was accompanying them to the city centre.
As you'll know if you've attended the parade with children, step-ladders are de rigueur, despite the obvious hazards. If St Patrick banished the snakes, so the Health and Safety Authority will banish the ladders, eventually. But in the meantime, how else are your kids going to see anything over the heads of a 650,000 crowd? There are only so many trees and statues to go around.
Which brings me back to those parade statistics, for which miraculous hardly seems the word. I've been through them before, elsewhere in this paper. But I had a chance to study them up close this time, so long-time readers will have to bear with me while I recap.
The parade route is about a mile-and-a-half long, with people on either side, giving a crowd length of three miles. That's a distance of 15,840 feet, in the old money. Now let's assume that the average Irish person is two feet wide, elbow to elbow - a conservative estimate, considering the obesity epidemic, the increased personal space needs of SUV drivers, and so on.
One row of such people, standing shoulder to shoulder on either side of the route, with nobody detached (or even semi-detached) would therefore number 7,920. Seven rows would equal the attendance at Cheltenham Gold Cup day, which is not for the faint-hearted. But to reach the official parade crowd estimate would require 82 rows of people on either side: a squeeze on the M50, you might think, never mind Dame Street.
Of course, this is just conventional arithmetic. The parade organisers may be using a faith-based system, or quantum mechanics, or both. And with St Patrick involved, anything is possible.
No more than most people, I have no idea what a 650,000 crowd looks like, anyway. Parade grand marshal Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh was one of the few people in a position to see the the whole attendance. And although he often ventures estimates as to how many people are in Croke Park when it's not full, he would surely struggle with a crowd that was apparently eight times the number who watched the Ireland-England rugby game.
Our step-ladder was pitched at one of the wider parts of the route - Christ Church - where the onlookers were about six rows deep. I erected the ladder a few feet to the rear, fearing we would be engulfed when the rest arrived. But apart from one moment when we were joined on our personalised reviewing stand by an uninvited woman with a video camera, conditions were never uncomfortable.
When it was time to go home, I was able to shoulder the ladder and swing it around without hitting anyone. I shuddered to think of the more densely populated parts of the route, however, where the crowd must have been 120 rows deep - so I assumed, using conventional arithmetic - and careless ladder work could cause a stampede. So it was a great relief when, yet again, gardaí reported that the day had passed off peacefully.
It is, as I say, nothing short of a miracle that 650,000 can attend something in a small part of Ireland, without incident, and with public transport operating only a Sunday service for most of the day.
The banishment of the snakes was a minor event by comparison. And I'd hate to think, as some rationalising heretics do, that the 650,000 attendance is just a colourful legend.