Did St Patrick Drink?

I had been thinking about it last week but it really bubbled up this weekend, why do we have a “holiday” with pretty much the sole purpose of drinking?

I went to a local restaurant Saturday for a burger and was amazed that it wasn’t as busy as I would have expected. The waiter’s take was that because they didn’t serve green beer a lot of folks went elsewhere.

What is it about an apparently religious man’s driving the snakes from an island country that promotes public drunkenness? It seems to me that this would be a good target for “holiday repeal”. St Patrick’s Day serves no other purpose. If we really want to model “good” behavior for our children, we really need to stop glamorizing drinking, public drunkenness, and the inference that you have to drink considerable quantities of alcohol to have fun.

(Just a side note: I had a great grandfather how emigrated from Ireland, but he was an Orangeman, so I don't get into "the wearing of the green")