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Writer's pictureAli Isaac

Patrick, Saint or Sinner? #stpatricksday

Updated: Mar 22, 2021

He’s most famous for being Ireland’s patron saint, and is celebrated around the world, even by non Irish people, on the date of his death, March 17th, known as St  Patrick’s Day, which is also an occasion for celebrating Irishness in general.


Although accepted as being active during the latter half of the C5th, his birth and death cannot be dated. Some records claim he came to Ireland in 432AD, and that he died in 462AD, others that he died in 492AD. The Annals weren’t compiled until the mid C6th, and combine stories seen as both historical and mythological, and unfortunately, as such, they cannot be relied upon for accuracy.

 
patrick, saint or sinner? www.aliisaacstoryteller.com
 

Patrick himself wrote two letters which survived into present times, in which he recounts parts of his life. These documents are known as the Confessio and the Epistola, and give us a great insight not only into his life and motivations, but also into life in Ireland at that time. You can read both documents here.


It is generally well accepted that Patrick was born into a Roman British family in the UK, possibly at Ravenglass in Cumbria, which is not far from where I come from, actually. His father was Calipurnias, and was a deacon.

 
st Pat with shamrock
 

When he was just sixteen, Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and brought to either Slemish (in Irish Sliabh Mis), a striking mountain near Ballymena in Co Antrim, or Fochill near Killala Bay (in Irish Cuan Chill Ala), the estuary of the River Moy, where he was sold as a slave, and subsequently worked as a shepherd for six years.


During this time, he seemed to go through some kind of spiritual epiphany, when he came to know God, praying up to a hundred times a day. (I would too, if I thought it might help me escape slavery and find my way back home!) In his Confessio, he claims he heard a voice in a dream instructing him to leave Ireland in a ship that was waiting for him in a port two hundred miles away.


Some say this port was in Wicklow. When he got there, there was indeed a ship about to sail for England, but the crew refused to take him at first. Patrick turned to prayer, which God duly answered, for before he had even finished his devotions, the Captain had a sudden change of heart, and agreed to take him on board.


After three days at sea, they landed, not in another port as expected, but in a strange wilderness where they wandered for twenty eight days without coming across any signs of civilisation. At this point, they had run out of food, and the crew asked Patrick to pray to his God to provide for them. Clearly, their own pagan Gods had forsaken them. Patrick readily obliged, and immediately they came across a herd of wild boar. They killed many and feasted for two days, before continuing their journey.


Patrick returned home and devoted himself to Christianity. After a few years, he had a vision in which a man named Victoricus (probably Saint Vitricius, bishop of Rouen) gave him a letter which came from the people of Ireland, begging him to return and teach them the new religion. It was a calling Patrick could not deny.


Returning to Wicklow, Patrick was met with hostility from the locals, and sought refuge off the coast of Skerries (where I first lived when I came to Ireland!), before continuing with his mission.


It is said that he founded his first church at Saul (in Irish Sabhall Phádraig, meaning ‘Patrick’s Barn’) in Co Down.  Apparently, strong currents had swept his boat through Stranford Lough and into the mouth of the Slaney River. The local chieftain, Dichu subsequently converted and gave him the barn.


It was here that he was brought when he died, and was buried nearby at Downpatrick. St Patrick’s Memorial Church is reputed to be built on the site of his grave.


The Confessio and the Epistola are fascinating, because they seem to relate to some transgression for which Patrick was put on trial. It’s not clear exactly what happened, but it is thought that the writing of the Epistola resulted in Patrick writing the Confessio.


King Ceretic Guletic had taken some Christian Irish converts and sold them into slavery. Enraged, Patrick had tackled the King only to be confronted with ridicule. He therefore wrote the Epistola to Ceretic’s warband, effectively excommunicating them all. This leads to fellow Christians, once thought of as friends, making accusations against him which are not given in the letter, although he writes that he gave back all the gifts given him by wealthy women, that he did not take payment for all the baptisms he made although he made many thousands, or for ordaining priests, and that he himself paid for all the gifts given to the kings and judges; were these bribes to allow him to convert their clans, I wonder. In any case, this protestation of innocence and denial of receiving gifts and money smacks of financial misdemeanor to me. Perhaps St Pat wasn’t quite as saintly as we thought.

 
St Patrick banishing the snakes. Attribution: Lyricmac at en.wikipedia
St Patrick banishing the snakes. Attribution: Lyricmac at en.wikipedia
 

As well as his own letters, his life was recorded by two late C7th writers, Tírechán, and Muirchiu moccu Macthenni. Both drew upon the earlier lost Book of Ultán, written most probably by Ultan of Ardbraccan, who was Tírechán’s foster-father.


Interestingly, they portray quite a different figure from the good saintly character we have been led to believe. They claim he was something of a tempestuous warrior, attacking druids and their idols, and cursing kings and their kingdoms. This ties in well with some of the myths about him, which do not describe a peaceful benevolent man of God, but rather a zealous tyrant.


They also intimate that he targeted the conversion of females, preferably those of royal status and wealthy noblewomen, accepting gifts from them, and persuading them to become nuns and found religious orders, much to the chagrin of their families. He also targeted slaves and the poor, who were only too eager to find a way out of the drudgery and hardship of their lives.


There are many stories and legends in which St Patrick makes an appearance. He must have been a very busy man indeed, if he truly was involved in all the events he is credited with! I’d go so far as saying a fair bit of time travel must have been involved, and a sprinkling of Sidhe magic and portal manipulation, too,  at times.


Most famously, Patrick is said to be responsible for driving all serpents from Ireland. This is an interesting story, because, according to naturalist Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, “at no time has there ever been any suggestion of snakes in Ireland, so [there was] nothing for St. Patrick to banish.” He should know, having searched extensively through Irish fossil collections and records.


In the absence of a reptile population, this has been explained as a reference to ridding Irish shores of the Druids, who were known to revere the serpent, and the circle of life it represented. If he was as war-like as Tírechán and Miurchu claim, perhaps this story disguised an ugly truth, a battle or even a massacre… it would not be the first time in history that Christians waged holy war.

 
Lone standing stone at Magh Slecht.
Lone standing stone at Magh Slecht.
 

Closer to home, for me, is the story of Patrick saving the Irish from the worship of Crom Cruach on the plain of Magh Slecht. This is a grisly story involving the annual sacrifice of the nations every first-born child by smashing their heads on the idol stone known as the Killycluggin Stone, and sprinkling the blood around the stone circle in return for a good crop. Fortunately, Patrick showed up, smashed the stone, and banished the devil which flew out of it to hell.


As this was happening, ‘three quarters of the men of Ireland’ (the High King’s warband) and the High King Tigernmas were mysteriously slaughtered as they knelt in their devotions, allegedly by their own god, according to Christian observers. Sounds like the work of an army sweeping down upon them, to me.


We already know how sacred the number three was to the ancient pagans; it is a pattern seen repeated over and over again in all things considered important and powerful to them, such as the maiden-mother-crone aspect of certain female Irish deities, birth-life-death, mind-body-spirit, and so on. The pagans had long considered the shamrock as a sacred symbol, its three heart-shaped green leaves representing rebirth and the cycle of life. It comes as no surprise, then, that Patrick should choose to use it to illustrate the Christian Holy Trinity. Clearly, it was a symbol the  pagans resisted giving up, and the church was very clever at adopting the pagan customs they couldn’t destroy, and usurping them to suit their own beliefs.

 
Croagh Patrick. Attribution: Bart Horeman
Croagh Patrick. Attribution: Bart Horeman
 

Today, there are many places in Ireland which still bear Patrick’s name. Croagh Patrick is a mountain in Co Mayo where he was said to have fasted for the forty days and nights of Lent before vanquishing the serpents of Ireland. At 764m, it is the third highest mountain in the county.


In pre-Christian times, it was called Cruachán Aigle, although it is not clear what this means. Once the site of pagan pilgrimage for the summer solstice, it is now climbed by thousands of people every year on the last Sunday in July, some of them bare-foot or even on their knees, in honour of the Saint. There is a little chapel on the summit where mass is said, and sadly, the side of the mountain has been heavily eroded by the passage of so many feet.


The Hill of Slane stands 158m high in Co Meath, and is said to be the burial site of Fir Bolg king Sláine mac Dela. A mound is located there, along with two standing stones which are all that remain of a pagan site. There are various other ancient sites on the hill, including the remains of a church or abbey. From here the Hill of Tara can clearly be seen, and it was here that  St. Patrick was said to have lit a Paschal fire in defiance of the High King Laoire.


Patrick well understood the ancient sacred customs of the fire festivals; he knew that all fires across the land must be extinguished while the need-fire was kindled, and he knew that his fire on Slane would be easily seen by the King at Tara. The King demanded the fire was put out, but the story goes that even the Druids with all their magical powers were unable to extinguish it.

 
bealtaine fire (2)
 

n the end, the King acquiesced to the saint’s higher power, and allowed him to continue his missionary work, although he did not convert himself. I’m surprised the King didn’t clap him in irons for his inflammatory (pardon the pun!) and disrespectful act, but perhaps he didn’t see the new religion as a threat. Patrick does make mention in his letters that he was once imprisoned for sixty days, but does not say what for; he also says he was often beaten and robbed. Small wonder…


I must finish by saying that Patrick has never formally been canonised by the Pope, and therefore is not actually recognised as a saint by some. In the early years of Christianity, saints were made on a local level by a local church very soon after their death… which perhaps explains why there are so many in Ireland.

St Patrick’s life is one of semi-historic, semi-mythological proportions. As with much of Ireland’s past, it is impossible to pull apart fact and myth. He pops up in the most unlikely places where I wasn’t expecting him. I believe that in many cases, the scribes who assembled the oral traditional stories into some order of a history for Ireland, who were mostly monks, tried to combat the wealth of pagan lore by tempering it with Patrick’s presence.


There is no doubt however, that this man made a huge impact on the people of this land, whatever your view.

 

And here is a very interesting podcast episode about St Pat from Abarta Heritage's Amplifying Archaeology podcast:



Duration: 1 hour 11 mins.


Summary:

Dig into the story of St Patrick in this deep-dive discussion with Terry O’Hagan. We discuss what evidence we have of St. Patrick, the Ireland of the 5th century, and what his writings can tell us about the earliest days of Christianity in Ireland.

 

Please note: I am not anti-Christian, or anti any other religion. I dislike oppression of any kind. Forcing religion on others is oppression, in my view. Many bad things have been done in the name of religion, and I’m not just talking about Christianity, both historically and ongoing, crusades and witch hunts, the expansion of Empire, for example. To ignore that is, well, ignorant. In Ireland we are still uncovering mass graves in cess pits at mother and baby homes, listening to stories of the ‘dying rooms’ and abuse of children on a huge scale by those who work for God, not to mention the dirty work of the Magdelane laundries. Sadly, large scale organised religion is as susceptible to the more ugly human traits of power, control and greed as any other organisation, it seems.

 

20 Comments


Robert Crowther
Robert Crowther
Mar 16, 2020

Will check it out Ali thank you Been spending a lot. Of. My time lately trying to find my family in. Ireland was over in Dublin at the record s office last year seems most of. My relatives are in America strange I can find more. Out about 10 century Ireland than I. Can about the 1870s but I don't give up trying an Irish trait maybe all the best xxxxx

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Robert Crowther
Robert Crowther
Mar 15, 2020

Thank you Ali please write some more stories I'm always interested in Irish. History love to learn. New facts. Xxxc

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Ali Isaac
Ali Isaac
Mar 15, 2020

Robert, do you ever use Celt? It is a UCC site, so it's a source you can trust. Just click on the Published heading, there are loads of texts to read for free.

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Ali Isaac
Ali Isaac
Mar 15, 2020

Glad to see you over here, Colleen! I love the discussion that goes on over these topics, too. 💕

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Robert Crowther
Robert Crowther
Mar 15, 2020

Many of the old books are hard to find but a lot are now being printed again I'm amazed at the strange tales told about the Irish heros and the godlike beings the dannan the monks who copied them did not know who these beings who arrived from the clouds were gods demons or aliens or survivors of Atlantis my research is ongoing

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