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The Apostle of Ireland
Patrick was born in about AD385 into a Romano-British Christian family. His grandfather had been a priest, and his father, Calpurnius, was a deacon and minor local official in a town called by his contemporaries Bannavem Taberniae. This was probably on the west coast of what is now England - where exactly we do not know, but probably somewhere between the Severn and the Clyde. The west coast of Britain was vulnerable to Irish raiders and when Patrick was 16 years old he was carried off by Irish marauders and passed his captivity as a herdsman near the mountain Slemish in country Antrim (as tradition has it) or in county Connacht (Connaught). He used his spare time to pray, unlike his earlier years in Britain when 'he knew not the true God'. The young herdsman saw visions in which he was urged to escape, and after six years of slavery he did so. Hearing at last in a dream that the ship in which he was to escape was ready, he fled his master and found passage to Britain. There he came near to starvation and suffered a second brief captivity before he was reunited with his family. His spiritual autobiography, Confessio (Confessions), tells of a dream he had after his return to Britain, in which one Victoricus brought him a letter headed "The Voice of the Irish". As he read it he seemed to hear a certain company of Irish beseeching him to walk once more among them. "Deeply moved," he says, "I could read no more." Nevertheless, because of the shortcomings of his education he was reluctant for a long time to respond to the call. To prepare himself for his return, he studied in the monastery of Lerins, on an island off the southeast coast of France. He also went to Auxerre, also in France, and studied religion under Saint Germanus, a French bishop. Partly because Patrick's earlier education was inadequate, his religious superiors were reluctant to let him return to Ireland as a missionary. But Palladius, the first Irish missionary bishop, died in 431. In the following year Pope Celestine I sent Patrick to Ireland. Even on the eve of embarkation for Ireland he was beset by doubts of his fitness for the task. Once in the field, however, his hesitations vanished. Utterly confident in the Lord, he journeyed far and wide, baptizing and confirming with untiring zeal. In diplomatic fashion he brought gifts to a minor king here and a lawgiver there but accepted none from anybody. On at least one occasion he was cast into chains for his pains. Patrick actually began his work in northern and western Ireland, where no one had ever preached Christianity. He gained the trust and friendship of several tribal leaders and soon made many converts. He is said to have founded more than 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 people. He even brought clergymen from England and France for his new churches. His mission in Ireland was a success, even though many British clergymen opposed him and the way he organized his churches. Patrick was appointed, sometime later, as the successor to St Palladius, and made Bishop of Ireland. It is possible that he visited Rome and returned with relics. By 444 Patrick had established his episcopal see at Armagh. There is much controversy surrounding the details of Patrick's life and achievements. The view of him as the only true apostle of Ireland who converted the whole country single-handed is greatly exaggerated. This conversion took many evangelists and several generations to accomplish. One of the best-known tales tells how he charmed the snakes of Ireland into the sea so that they drowned - an attractive story, but that is what it is, a legend - a myth. His reported use of the shamrock as an illustration of the Trinity, which has no basis in fact, led to it being regarded as the Irish national symbol. A strange chant of his, called the Lorica (or 'Breastplate'), is preserved in the Liber Hymnorum (Book of Hymns), and the hymn tune, 'St Patrick's Breastplate', is an arrangement by C.V.Stanford on a melody ascribed to St Patrick. What is supposed to have been a handbell he used during Mass is exhibited in the National Museum in Dublin. The contemporary evidence for Patrick's work is found in the only two surviving pieces of writing that are certainly by him: the Confessio, in which he reviews his life, and his Letter to Coroticus. Coroticus was a British chieftain, and some of his men made an attack on one of Patrick's congregations in which some of his converts were killed, and in the letter Patrick denounces this attack. Patrick follows the letter-writing protocol of his time by beginning his missive with a passage steeped in humility, confessing his sinfulness. "I Patrick, a sinner, very badly educated, in Ireland declare myself to be a bishop. I am quite certain that I have received from God that which I am. Consequently I live among barbarian tribes as an exile and refugee for the love of God; God himself is the witness that this is true." He was right about the bad education, but what else could you expect of a lad taken into slavery when still a teenager. His Latin was poor. But so was the late Latin spoken in Britain at the time. But his reference to "barbarian tribes" is more important in understanding St Patrick's life and work. At that time Ireland was quite literally at the edge of the earth. It lay further west than any other lands that the Romans knew, and beyond it lay the freezing Atlantic Ocean. The Roman empire was declining and preparing for a fall. The beginning of the 5th century could be a terrifying time for a civilised person in the Roman Empire, when it seemed as if chaos and darkness were about to engulf the entire world. A Christian living through these times might well have thought that the last days of the world were approaching. As far as St Patrick was concerned, God had chosen him to preach in the last country on earth. Anyone going further west would fall off the edge of the world. So his mission must have seemed all the more urgent to him. By the time his active evangelizing was at an end he had left an indelible mark on the history of Christianity by almost single-handedly bringing into being the monastic structure of the Irish church. When and where he died is not known for certain, though the chief myth is that he was buried at Saul, a village in County Down. His traditional feast day is March 17th. Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 1 JULY 2001 |
