Pattern (devotional)

A pattern (Irish: pátrún) in Irish Roman Catholicism refers to the devotions that take place within a parish on the feast day of the patron saint of the parish, on that date, or the nearest Sunday, called Pattern Sunday.

The name pattern is a corruption of patron, as in "patron saint".

Many patterns are linked to rituals at wells and other special places, suggesting associations with pre-Christian rituals adapted to Christian practice. They often took place at around the same time as the great festival of Lughnasa.

In pre-Reformation times, festivities began with religious devotions at the church, but this came to an end with the confiscation and/or destruction of Roman Catholic churches between the 1540s and the 1690s. By 1700, the devastation was such that very few, if any, churches remained under Catholic control and public religious ceremonies almost disappeared. With the passage of the Penal Laws, the institutional church was an outlawed religious society; its churches few, its clergy scarce. With the central location of their devotions gone, people found alternative ways to honour their saint's feast day. While many of the faithful paid homage at the saint's shrine or in the ruins of their local church, most devotions took place at a nearby holy well, celebrated for its curative power. The earliest reference to the Pattern in Ardmore can be found in the calendar of State Papers of June 12, 1611, which mention "a grant of a fair to be held at Ardmore Co. Waterford, on St. Declan's Eve or Day. Before 1800 St. Declan's Stone and the Oratory containing his skull formed the centre of the festivities on St. Declan's Day. Other places noted for large attendance include St. Patrick's Purgatory and Croagh Patrick.

Priests would often assign making a pattern at a local well as a penance for sins; pilgrimages to such sites as Croagh Patrick also had a penitential purpose. The largest patterns would attract thousands of people. Although held in rural areas, the patterns attracted crowds from nearby towns. People would “pay rounds” by circumambulating a Holy Well a prescribed number of times in a clockwise or sunwise direction, reciting a rosary during each round, replicating an ancient Celtic rite known as the deiseal. At some sites participants would proceed to various "stations", such as a small oratory, the saint's grave, or a Celtic cross in a predetermined and customary order. Having completed the religious devotion participants would also engage in activities such as gaming, singing, dancing, and horse racing. Some patterns lasted for several days.

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