Saint Patrick

Life story

Patrick was born into a Christian family in Roman Britain; his father Calpurnius was a deacon and his grandfather a priest. At around sixteen he was seized by Irish raiders and taken as a slave. He tended livestock for six years there, then escaped and returned to his family in Britain.

Later he went back to Ireland, this time as a bishop, and devoted the rest of his life to preaching, baptising and founding Christian communities, while facing considerable opposition. He also wrote openly of his sense of his own lack of education.

He is known chiefly from two Latin texts he wrote himself: the Confessio and the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus, in which he condemns the enslaving of newly baptised Irish people. These texts contain no dates, so his chronology is debated; most scholars place him in the fifth century.

By tradition he died in 461 and was buried at Downpatrick, but both the year and the place are uncertain. Many familiar details, such as driving out the snakes or the shamrock, belong to later legend. His feast is 17 March, and he is patron of Ireland. Because sources are scarce, historians take care to separate what Patrick wrote himself from what later biographers told. The earliest of those biographies, by Muirchú and Tírechán, date from the late seventh century, well after his death. Even so, the two surviving writings give an unusually personal view of a fifth-century missionary working at the edge of the Roman world.

Works and witness

• Taken as a slave to Ireland at about sixteen, he herded livestock for six years
• Returned to Ireland as a bishop and founded Christian communities
• Left two texts: the Confessio and the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus
• The story of driving out the snakes is later legend

Patron of

Ireland

Saints from the same country

Saint Columba, Saint Brigid of Ireland, Saint Columbanus, Saint Oliver Plunkett

References

• Patrick, Confessio
• Patrick, Epistola ad milites Corotici
• Martyrologium Romanum

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.