St. Patrick



The exact information of his date of birth & the place of birth is unknown.



They say Patrick was born in Roman Britain at Banna Venta Berniae. Calpornius, his father, was a deacon, his grandfather Potitus, a priest.

Slavery & Belief



When Patrick was about 16 he was captured from Britain by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family.



After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop in the north and west of the island.

Legends



The first legend credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the Ireland, though all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes.

Legends

 

The second legend credits Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a 3 leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of 'three divine persons in the one God'. Shamrock became a symbol of Ireland because of Patrick.

Legends



The third legend tells us that Patrick brought written language to Ireland. But we know that written language appeared when Britain was romanized.

Death



According to the latest reconstruction of the old Irish annals, Patrick died in AD 461 on March 17, a date accepted by some modern historians. Prior to the 1940s it was believed without doubt that he died in 420 and thus had lived in the first half of the 5th century.



St. Patrick is said to be buried at Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, County Down, alongside St. Brigid and St. Columba, although this has never been proved. The Battle for the Body of St. Patrick demonstrates the importance of both him as a spiritual leader, and of his body as an object of veneration, in early Christian Ireland.



By the seventh century he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.

Saint Patrick’s Day



Saint Patrick's Day (17 March), supposedly the day of his death, is celebrated both in and outside of Ireland, as both a liturgical and non liturgical holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation and outside of Ireland, it can be a celebration of Ireland itself.