Posted on March 17, 2009

As all our clients know every year we at Decoder like to celebrate St Patrick’s Day by sending our clients a small themed gift as a thank-you for their support. Over the previous years we’ve sent our clients chocolate shamrocks, chocolate potatoes (repeated several years by popular demand) and customised t-shirts. This year, Decoder decided to highlight the snake banishing skills of our lovely patron saint.

In case some of you don’t know, Ireland is a snake-free country and according to ‘folklore’ (and who among us would challenge ‘folklore’?) the man behind the snake-free zone is none other than St Patrick himself. The story goes that St Patrick decided to rid Ireland of the evil Snake. By brandishing his wooden staff he drove most of the snakes into the sea. However, one old serpent resisted, but the saint overcame it by cunning. He made a box and showed it to the old snake claiming it would make an ideal snake den. The snake insisted the box was too small and the discussion became very heated. Finally the snake entered the box to prove he was right, whereupon St Patrick slammed the lid and cast the box into the sea ridding the land of snakes forever. Hurray!

Now if that isn’t a reason to celebrate then we don’t know what is. And what better way than to send our clients a bag of the ONLY snakes now found in Ireland… jelly snakes. Yum.