Last Sunday's parish bulletin was number 1001, the week before that was 1100. If it all sounds a bit Irish, it was St Patrick's Day, after all. Well, it was and it wasn't (as they might say on O'Connell Street.)

Whilst the great day fell as always on March 17, it was also the fifth Sunday in Lent which meant in the Roman Catholic church that St Patrick was "liturgically transferred" to the 18th.

A liturgical transfer should not be confused with a free transfer. They know plenty about those in Hartlepool.

We'd been to St Patrick's in Hartlepool once before in March, 1996. "Having so long ago introduced Christianity to Ireland," the column observed, "St Patrick must now do it all again on the Owton Manor estate."

Little seemed to have changed: steel shuttered shops across the road, graffiti on the walls, Fr Tom Cunningham as welcoming as he had been six years previously. "There are some wonderful people in Hartlepool," he'd said, "but there are houses out there where they haven't even heard of God."

Once the diocese had a purple panoply of priests called Cunningham - "Jack, Tony, Dennis," he recalls - and Bishop James Cunningham from 1958-74.

It was Bishop Cunningham who sent him off to be an RAF chaplain - "there must have been one too many of us" - before he landed seven years ago in Hartlepool. He is in his early 70s and, like Bishop Ambrose Griffiths - last week's column - shows little sign of wear, or wearying.

"The bishop has been four or five times this year," says Fr Cunningham. "He likes nothing better than being among people, going around with the tea pot."

What has changed is that St Patrick's has gained a shamrock patch near the door, tended by Jackie Hartnett who'd been at the early Mass.

"If we'd known you were coming, we'd have picked you some," says Sister Philomena, the pastoral assistant, though others patriotically sport the national emblem. "I thought the shamrock was only supposed to grow in Ireland," says someone else.

"Perhaps they brought the soil over from Ireland as well," replies Sister Philomena, diplomatically.

Patrick attracts many legends, not least the stuff about banishing snakes and toads, since there are neither of either - not the serpentine sort, anyway, though there remain snakes in Ireland every bit as cold blooded.

What's fairly reliably known is that Ireland's saint was Welsh, or possibly Scottish, was captured by Irish raiders as a 16-year-old and after six years as a swineherd escaped, pig sick, to France.

His return as a bishop saw many thousands converted to Christianity and many churches built. He died, give or take 30 years either way, on March 17, 461.

The green attraction on March 17 grows almost annually, not least thanks to the efforts of Mr Ken Livingstone (who didn't have the funds to salute St George as well), to sham shamrock pubs and the Guinness Brewery.

For fear of offending emerald susceptibilities back home, however, Guinness had also liturgically transferred the occasion and urged folk to party on St Patrick's Eve, instead.

Maybe 250 are at 10.30am Mass at St Patrick's, Owton Manor, an attractive church consecrated 41 years ago. About 30 bairns are shepherded off to Sunday School before the service starts.

The first two hymns are set to familiar tunes - Morning Has Broken and Plaisir d'Amour which, no offence to Owton Manor, Joan Baez did better. Had the recessional been to the tune of Danny Boy - there are several appealing "Danny Boy" hymns - it would not in the least have been surprising.

Fr Cunningham preaches on the Gospel, the raising of Lazarus. "There is no religion in the world except Christianity which shows a God ready to weep with his people," he says.

There is also a special blessing for the parish's readers- not lay ministers, as we discussed a couple of weeks back in the Church of England - but those who literally read the scriptures.

A large baptism party heads in as 10.30 heads out, offering little time for conversation. Insofar as may be gathered from the liturgical words "Peace be with you", however, there are few Irish accents in Hartlepool.

The closing hymn is "Our glorious St Patrick", to a tune hitherto unheard. It had been good to be back; off Pat once again.

Green shoots....ten things you might never have known about St Patrick.

The three leaf shamrock is said to represent the holy Trinity - the phrase "drowning the shamrock" is from the custom of floating a shamrock on top of a drink.

Pota Padraig - St Patrick's pot - is a traditional whiskey made from white potatoes. The saint is said also to have introduced distilling to Ireland.

Patrick's father, possibly Italian, was a church deacon - but only, says one history, for tax reasons.

The first St Patrick's Day parade was held in Boston in 1737 by the Charitable Irish Society of Boston.

In Chicago on March 17 they reverse the flow of the river under Michigan Avenue and dye the water green.

More than 100,000 pilgrims, some barefoot, each year climb the 2500ft Cloagh Patrick in Co Mayo where the saint is said to have spent 40 days and 40 nights.

Patrick also introduced the ritual of the Easter bonfire.

The huge number of Americans with Irish roots owes much to a mass exodus during the great potato famine of 1845.

Until the 1970s, Irish law forbade pubs to open on March 17. Since 1995, the occasion has been actively promoted by the government tourism department.

Sufferers from chromatophobia should stay in bed next March 17. It's a fear of all things green.