There are very few places on earth including New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica which do not have snakes as these reptiles can be quite tenacious when it comes to ‘survival of the fittest’. Ireland is one such country that has no snakes and one man is credited to put all the snakes away from the country -St. Patrick. But how much truth lies in this fact when science has advanced so much?
Legend has it that during 40-days fasting on a hill snakes began pestering St. Patrick who was stricken with a divine purpose. He courageously drove away the serpents into the sea and rid Ireland of the creatures forever.
But Paleontologists have confirmed that there were no native snakes in Ireland for at least 10,000 years. The most recent ice age had kept Ireland too cold for snakes to survive. After that surrounding seas might have kept them from colonizing Emerald Isle.
Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin observed that land link of Ireland to Britain was cut off some 2,000 years earlier by seas swollen by the melting glaciers. Animals like brown bears, wild boars, and lynxes reached the island but snakes could never make it.
Mark Ryan, director of the Louisiana Poison Center at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport stated “There are no snakes in Ireland for the simple reason they couldn’t get there because the climate wasn’t favorable for them to be there.”
Scholars see the tale as allegorical as snakes are symbols of sin, evil and temptation in Judeo-Christian beliefs as portrayed in Bible where Satan takes the shape of a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve go against God and fall from his grace. It can also be seen as a metaphor for his act of Christianizing the island and stopping Pagan practices.
Did You Know?
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The Titanic was built in Belfast, Northern Ireland. -
Two-headed snakes do exist and are like conjoined twins.
