There are no snakes in Ireland. Why are there no snakes in Ireland? What do rattlesnakes rattle?

An ancient legend says that Saint Patrick, Equal to the Apostles, who brought the news of the Holy Trinity and the Risen Christ to the Irish, expelled snakes from the Green Island by the power of his prayer. Since then, many saints have shone on this rocky but joyfully green land; its people have suffered a lot for loyalty to their Christian roots. Everywhere in Ireland there are ruins of ancient shrines. But such trouble as came to Green Island in recent years and especially months, has never been here before.

The Cabinet of Ministers, headed by Leo Varadkar - a sodomite who proudly declared his illness in 2015 - has launched a campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which states: “The State recognizes the right to life of the unborn and, by due consideration, attention to the equal right to life of his mother, guarantees in its laws respect for this right, and, as far as possible, legislatively protects and defends this right.”

The Irish Constitution, while “recognizing the right to life of the unborn,” protects the conceived child from abortion

The 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution is an impeccable norm in the field of maternal and child rights. Christians in many countries dream of a law that would recognize a conceived child as a human being and protect him from abortion, while protecting the life of the mother.

“This is one of the most progressive pieces of constitutional law the world has ever seen,” says Renua Ireland co-leader Neil O'Mahony. “It provides protection for pregnant women and unborn babies, and , where a dangerous situation arises, allows doctors to prioritize saving the lives of mothers. So, thanks to the 8th Amendment, Ireland has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world: the maternal mortality rate in Ireland is 6.5 per 100,000 people, compared to the United States. – 28 per 100,000.”

The Republic of Ireland is a neutral country; it is not a member of NATO, but is a member of the European Union, whose corrupted “elite” is energetically turning Europe into Sodom. Opponents of Christianity have long been fighting against the traditional values ​​of Irish society, one of which has been the ban on abortion since ancient times. First of all, there is a continuous persecution of the Catholic Church in the media. The real and imaginary sins of its servants are presented in an exaggerated form, while it is suggested that one should not believe in God. Through programs funded by the well-known George Soros Foundation, in Irish universities (which bear the names of saints!) sexual perversions are presented as the norm by gay teachers. As a result of this treatment of young people, carried out under the programs of the Soros Foundation, an average of 40 thousand mentally ill people go to gay pride parades in Dublin.

Today they play on the feelings of young people, telling on TV programs how uncomfortable it is for women to go to England to get rid of their children, that there are several cases (!) of deaths and, of course, that a child under 6 weeks is “not quite a person yet” . Many were assured that the 8th Amendment allegedly “tramples upon the rights of women.” This is how the Pro-Choice movement was born, which convinces Irish citizens to say “Yes” to the desire to kill their own child. One of the inspirers of this crazy crowd, shouting: “My body is my business!” Simon Harris, who occupies the chair of the Minister of Health (!), calls Ireland “cold, callous and careless” because it prohibits the killing of conceived children.

It seems that nowhere is the difference between the Christian and the perverted satanic understanding of human rights: the right to good and the right to evil, more clearly visible than in the current campaign in Ireland.

The best people Ireland today is striving for the truth in the “Pro Life” movement, which has united church parishes with all Irish people, for whom the human right to life expresses the very essence of the national character of this people - life-loving, family-oriented, ready to make sacrifices for the sake of their homeland. The Irish paid a high price for their republic, for their rule of law: neither occupation nor famine broke them. And now, when Mr. Soros, the “sexual educator” of the entire planet, has called Irish children’s right to life into question, this has stirred up the best forces in the country.

“Don’t be afraid to testify to the equality of all lives, both in private and in public discussions, regardless of pressure to remain silent,” said Archbishop Eamon Martin, leader of Catholics in all of Ireland.

In recent months, activists of the “Pro Life” movement - doctors and lawyers, students and athletes, people who themselves experienced an abortion and do not wish this on others - have carried out enormous outreach work in the cities and villages of Green Island. Their visual propaganda is excellent: the posters show the beauty of motherhood and fatherhood, the defenselessness of the baby, his need for tenderness and love. Irish television channel RTE hosted a debate about the identity of the child in the mother's womb, exposing the lie of "doctor" Peter Boylan that the conceived baby supposedly begins to develop only from the 12th week and that before that he is supposedly "not human." In addition, it was revealed that in the abortion bill already prepared by the Varadkar government, the permissible period for abortion is twice as long - up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, while publicly Minister Simon Harris states that the period is half that time.

Nevertheless, the anti-Christian elite, as elsewhere in Europe, acts in Ireland brazenly, assertively and, it seems, is ready to achieve its goals at any cost.

We, Orthodox Christians, know that trials are always sent both to individuals and to entire nations in order to turn our minds and hearts to God.

Whatever the outcome of the next godless referendum, which will take place in distant Ireland on May 25, this shake-up awakens the souls of people on St. Patrick's Island, turning their gaze to their Christian roots. Our prayers are with the people of Ireland.

To the question Is it true that there are no snakes in Ireland? given by the author Slip through the best answer is St. Patrick Banishing Snakes
With the power given to him from above, St. Patrick ordered all the snakes from all over Ireland to gather on the mountain, which now bears the name Croagh Patrick, and then with a wave of his staff he cast them into the sea. Only one of the oldest and most cunning snakes did not appear. They had to use “military” tricks against him. St. Patrick invited the snake to climb into the box, which was supposedly too small for him (the snake)... Word for word, and, in the end, the angry bastard climbed into this box to prove that he was right. The box fit, the lid slammed shut, and the last kite set off into the sea following its comrades.
This whole story with snakes, however, can be taken not literally, but as an allegorical and figurative story about the victory of Christianity over paganism: in this case, the snakes symbolize the Druids, expelled from Ireland forever.
However:
The shocking discovery was made by Irish workers from the town of Ballyduff, located in western County Kerry. In a box of paving stones brought from Greece, they found a twenty-centimeter horned worm. However, experts from the Animal Welfare Society who arrived on call issued a more terrible verdict: the most poisonous of them in Europe - the long-nosed viper - has arrived in Ireland, where snakes have not been seen since the time of St. Patrick, who, according to legend, drove all reptiles from the Emerald Isle.
According to the society's chief inspector, Harry McDaid, who specializes in the study of reptiles, the workers were lucky that they did not touch the find, since the bite of this snake can be fatal within a short period of time.
“If the viper had bitten the workers, they would have only two hours to get to the hospital and receive the antivenom serum,” concluded McDaid. “However, it is doubtful that it would be found in local hospitals, as these snakes are not found in Ireland. So the bite would be fatal."
Experts suggest that the reptile, whose favorite habitats include rocky slopes and quarries, could have gotten into the box while loading the stone. At the same time, he had to make a two-month journey without food or drink. Fortunately, the warmth was guaranteed by the plastic packaging of the box.
Caring Irish people fed the viper a live mouse and sent it for permanent residence to the local zoo.
And one more thing: In fact, there is one type of non-venomous snake on the island, but it is quite rare. This shortage of species of these wonderful reptiles is obviously explained by the fact that the island broke away from the European continent quite early (earlier than Britain) and some of the animal and plant species found in Europe simply did not have time to get to Ireland.

Even Saint George had competitors: he was not the only one who ruled over the kingdom of snakes. God found other saints who chose neutralizing dangerous snakes as their profession.

One English historian describes 16th-century Ireland: “Meanwhile, amazing things are happening in Ireland, since there are neither magpies nor poisonous reptiles there. And I saw stones that had the appearance and shape of a snake. The people in those places say that these stones were formerly reptiles and that they were turned into stone by the will of God and the prayers of St. Patrick.”

Indeed, in the mountains and valleys of Ireland one often comes across strange objects that surprisingly resemble petrified snakes. At the same time, there are no living snakes there. Until relatively recently, merchants from England traveled to Ireland for an unusual product - land. It was believed that she had the magical power of an anti-snake antidote. The British sprinkled Irish soil on their gardens and fields and believed that the “holy soil” killed snakes.

Residents of the Lerins Islands (near the city of Cannes) tell the same story about their saint Honorat, who also allegedly turned all the snakes into stones. However, Christians (as, indeed, in most of their other fictions) are not original. Even the ancient Greeks believed that the immortal gods endowed the land of the island of Crete with the miraculous property of killing poisonous reptiles.

Why, after all, are there no snakes either in Crete, or in Ireland, or on the Lérins Islands? Of course, neither the Greek gods nor the Christian saints have anything to do with it. Snakes are not found on many islands around the world. They don’t exist, for example, on almost all Kuril Islands. There are no snakes in New Zealand, on the island of Madera. Snakes cannot fly: they were unable to move from the continents to the islands separated from them by wide sea straits.


“Stone Snake” is an ammonite.


In this case, what kind of stone snakes» found in Ireland? And not only in Ireland: for example, here in the Volga region and even in the Moscow and Ryazan regions. These are fossilized ammonites, extinct cephalopods. They have nothing to do with snakes. Ammonites are relatives of octopuses and cuttlefish. Approximately 200 million years ago, ammonites lived in countless schools in all seas and oceans. At that time they were perhaps the most numerous inhabitants of the ocean. To this day, on the site of long-vanished seas, entire deposits of shells of these animals twisted in the form of a clock spring are found in the ground. They look very much like coiled snakes and are popularly called “snake stones.”

The sizes of ammonites were very diverse: from 1 centimeter to several meters. The shell of the ammonite pachydiscus reached 3 meters in diameter. But the British Museum of Natural History in London houses a plaster cast of a shell fragment from an even larger ammonite. It is estimated that the entire shell of this giant was more than two meters in diameter! If it were fully untwisted, it would almost be as big as the roof of a four-story building! The world has never known such huge shells.

It is easy to imagine with what reverence superstitious people treated the memory of the holy savior when they found the remains of these petrified monsters in the ground. After all, they blindly believed the legend, which attributed the extermination of “terrible”, but in reality completely harmless animals to the magical power of the spell of a “holy” man who lived 80 million years after the last ammonite died out on Earth and managed to petrify.

Almost everyone fears or dislikes snakes. There are three types of people: 1% love snakes (they pick them up, play with them, have them at home), 94% would like to stay away from them. And there are 5% who are afraid of snakes more than anything else. Everyone has a friend like this: nod at any string - oh, snake! And that’s it, he already squeals and runs away in horror. It's easier for them to die than to stay in a room with snakes. But how much do we know about snakes? The majority knows almost nothing - let's fix that.

Actually, snakes kill people all the time.

Do you think it is very rare and exotic to die from a snake bite? It depends where you live. If you live in India, bad news: more than 80 thousand people are bitten by vipers and cobras every year, and 10 thousand of them die. This is the most dangerous region in terms of snake activity and aggressiveness. Obviously, somewhere in Vermont the chances of encountering a snake are much less, but we implore you - watch your step, wherever you are.

Is there a place on Earth completely without snakes?

The general rule is: the colder it is, the fewer snakes there are. It’s almost safe in the Arctic Circle and Antarctica, but you can’t go there on vacation. Few snakes in Iceland, Ireland and New Zealand. Some countries are full of snakes, but generally most are non-venomous. It is important for you to know that the snakes themselves do not want to meet you at all; they avoid people with all their might. Actually, there's another great way to avoid snakes: stay home.

Vessey's Snake, Maine's Favorite

One of the places where there are no poisonous snakes is the American state of Maine. But they have a snake known as Vessie (similar to Nessie, the Loch Ness monster). They say she is as long as a huge truck and has a head the size of a football. Fear, of course, has big eyes. The press reported: "A snake was seen in the park area feasting on a large mammal - probably a beaver." What a great place, right in the park, next to the playgrounds, snakes the size of trucks eating beavers! This is where you should go on vacation - adventures are guaranteed.

Don't mess with the black Mamba

If you've ever seen Tarantino's Kill Bill, you probably remember the mention of the black mamba as the most dangerous snake. Most herpentological experts agree: the black mamba is the most dangerous of all snakes in the world. Why is the mamba a symbol of horror? What's so scary about it? In addition to its strong poison, the black mamba is damn fast and fast, reaching speeds of over 11 km/h over short distances. But that's not the main thing. Its open mouth is black on the inside and to many it seems like a coffin, which instantly makes it creepy. The mamba lives in Africa, so walk there with double caution.

Does the snake eye have no eyelids?

The unblinking gaze of a cold-blooded killer...fear has big eyes, what people can’t come up with! So why don't snakes blink? It turns out that it’s not because they don’t have eyelids. Snakes have eyelids, you just can’t see them - they are transparent and fused. The thin skin that protects the eyes comes off together with the snake's skin in one "stocking" when molting. So the hypnotizing gaze of a snake is a pure myth.

Lebanese commandos are so tough they eat live snakes

During the annual ceremony, Lebanese commandos tear live snakes with their teeth. The senseless cruelty is intended to confirm their willingness to defeat the enemy with their bare hands. Yeah, that's probably true: if you can tear apart and eat a live snake, then you can probably do a whole bunch of super-tough stuff on the battlefield. There's no time for jokes here, poor snakes.

It was no coincidence that Voldemort called Nagini that way

Nagini is a huge poisonous one that belongs to Lord Voldemort. In Sanskrit and North Indian languages, naga means "king cobra" and naginii is feminine, female cobra. In "Harry Potter" there is a clear reference to the character of Kipling's fairy tale "Riki-tiki-tavi", where the king cobra was called Nagana (actually that cobra was called "Naked", because Kipling almost all the names of animals are just their names in Hindi) . The transliteration “Nagaina” has taken root in the Russian translation, and it was this that was included in “Riki-Tiki-Tavi” and in “Harry Potter”.

What do rattlesnakes rattle?

Something, a rattle, of course! And not just like that, the rattlesnake seems to say: I’m here, don’t step on it, stay away from me! When a rattlesnake is excited, its tail vibrates and rattles the rings at the end of the tail hitting each other. The result is a sharp buzzing sound. It can be heard at a distance of 20 meters and can be avoided by the snake.

Fairytale boomslangs exist

The boomslang snake, whose skin someone was always trying to steal from Snape's laboratory in Harry Potter, actually exists (boomslang skin is an important ingredient in witchcraft potions, for example, it is part of Polyjuice Potion). Its name comes from the African boomslang and means "tree snake". The boomeslang's green eyes have excellent vision, and the snakes almost always manage to avoid encounters with humans. But if they are caught, they sting. There are even several deaths reported as a result of a boomslang bite.

Titanoboa were the largest snakes on Earth

Those who are afraid of snakes probably don’t need to imagine what titanoboa mastodons looked like (although they would be better off not reading this post at all). Titanoboa snakes are long extinct; they lived on Earth approximately 58 million years ago. They were huge: the length reached 15 meters, the girth of the body was about a meter, and the weight was more than a ton. Unfortunately, we are not destined to meet such beauty in reality, but there are models of giants in several museums.

Snake with a coin

The Barbados narrow-mouthed snake or "Charles' snake" is the smallest in the world. An adult baby snake is no longer than 10 centimeters. They live only on the island of Barbados in the Caribbean Sea. They are completely harmless, they don’t even have teeth. Apparently this is why the snake is on the verge of extinction (or because the forests where they lived were all cut down). And it was named by the American biologist Hedge in honor of his wife, herpentologist Carla Ann Hass, about whose character history is silent.

Taipans are the most poisonous

Australian inland taipan, also called the "fierce snake". If you want to look at taipans, they live in the central part of Australia. This is the most poisonous of land snakes; the venom in one bite is enough to kill a hundred people. So, it’s probably better not to meet with them, they are very fast: when they see danger, they raise their heads and sting with lightning speed several times in a row. Before the invention of the antidote in 1955, 90% of their victims died from the bite of taipans.

The snake's heart is mobile inside its body

The snake's heart is not fixed: due to the lack of a diaphragm, the snake's heart is mobile and is able to move inside its body, dodging damage when something large goes down the esophagus. So if a snake eats something really huge, its heart will just roll away and then come back. The cardiovascular system of snakes has a unique system where blood from the snake's tail passes through the kidneys before returning to the heart. Isn’t it true how wisely nature arranged everything?

The unique arrangement of internal organs is not at all human

This is exactly what you didn’t know: unlike the paired human organs, which are located symmetrically, the internal organs of a snake have an elongated shape, are completely asymmetrical and single. Some of the snake organs used to have a pair, but during the process of evolution they lost their significance and became unpaired. Most snakes have only one lung, the second is usually rudimentarily developed.

Deadly poisonous or slightly toxic - it is better not to experiment

The venom of a viper and a cobra, of course, is different from what a girlfriend might pour into your glass. Eaten poison and a poisonous snake bite somewhere in the neck are two different things, and in the second case the action occurs many times faster. Whether it is toxic or deadly is never known for sure, and individual reactions to a poison can be unpredictable. We hope you never have to find out about this in real life. And remember that the snake cannot harm you if it is at a distance. Watch your step, stay away from snakes and take care of yourself!

Snakes are found on every continent on Earth except Antarctica, so their complete absence on the island of Ireland seems strange. What causes reptiles to ignore this region?

Firstly, Ireland is an island separated from Great Britain by a strait 80 kilometers wide. Snakes living on land cannot overcome such a distance. But why then do snakes live in Great Britain, which is also an island and separated from the mainland by a fairly wide English Channel?

The reason for such a strange distribution of snakes should be sought in the geological history of our planet. Over the course of its existence, the Earth goes through ice ages - repeated stages lasting several million years, when, due to a sharp cooling in the climate, significant growth of ice sheets occurs. The last ice age (part of the ice age) began on the planet about 110,000 years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. Much of northern Europe, bound by permafrost, was finally freed from the ice that covered the British Isles.

Primitive tribes and animals began to migrate to the islands. But not all creatures could penetrate deep into the islands, where the cold climate continued to persist. Among them were snakes, which initially settled only in the south of Great Britain. The remaining glaciers continued to melt, gradually flooding the land route between Ireland and Great Britain. This is how the Northern Strait was formed between the two islands. Great Britain remained connected to the mainland for another 2,000 years, until it found itself cut off from it by the strait we call the English Channel.

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It turns out that snakes simply did not have enough time to populate Ireland, which at that time was still too cold for them for most reptiles. Snakes still managed to populate Great Britain, gradually moving deeper into the island along with climate warming.

For those who are not satisfied with the scientific explanation for the absence of snakes in Ireland, there is a beautiful legend. It tells that the island was saved from snakes by the Christian discoverer Saint Patrick, who gathered all the reptiles on Mount Crow and ordered them to throw themselves into the water. Only one old snake disobeyed and remained on the mountain. Then Patrick had to resort to cunning and bet with the snake that he would not be able to fit into a wooden chest standing nearby. The snake, wanting to prove Patrick wrong, climbed into the box, which the man immediately closed and threw into the sea. This is how Saint Patrick rid Ireland of snakes.

Be that as it may, the absence of snakes is typical not only for Ireland, but also for such large islands, How New Zealand, Hawaii, Iceland and Greenland. But this does not always bring benefits to the territory. Accidentally got into wildlife a snake (such as one that escaped from a zoo or pet store) may become an invasive species and cause irreparable damage environment, destroying native species. This picture is observed on the island of Guam, where snakes were absent until recently. But the brown boyga, which was able to climb trees very well, was accidentally introduced into the ecosystem, multiplied and became a real disaster for local birds, almost completely exterminating the bird population.