Saints Preserve Us – Saint Patrick

Tweet

As it is Saint Patrick’s Day as I write this, Patrick seems the obvious saint to write about now. My first school was Saint Patrick’s in Collyhurst, North Manchester, which was run by nuns, though my research for this article told me I knew very little about him. Actually to be fair, very little is known about him, even the exact days and years of his birth and death. Historians and theologians put him in the mid 5th Century AD. He was actually English, and believed to be from Ravenglass in the Cumbrian Lake District. In his own surviving letters, among the few documents proven to be by him, he reports that he was abducted by pirates and sold to people in Ireland when he was in his mid-teens. He found work as a shepherd and started to show an interest in Christianity. He escaped back to England when he was 20 and became a Catholic Bishop. He decided to return to Ireland as a missionary. Ireland was largely populated then by pagan druids. For many years, Patrick faced mostly aggressive dismissal and death threats that forced him further North. He started using the pride the native Irish took in their country to his advantage. He famously used the three leaf shamrock as an illustration devise in describing theories of the Holy Trinity, and his flock began to grow. He became the first true Irish Bishop. Patrick was severely criticised for preaching only to the wealthy and accepting gifts or bribes from royals, nobles and the gentry for privileges, baptisms and posts in the church, so he returned any gifts he had been given and started promoting the faith with more humility. He created many convents and nunneries. The best known legend associated with Patrick is that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland seeing them as symbolic of the snake serpent that talked Adam & Eve into taking a bite of forbidden fruit. The reality is that Ireland never had any snakes which is not unusual, as neither do New Zealand, Iceland or Greenland. While most saints, including patron saints, barely get their holy days mentioned, including England’s Saint George, Saint Patrick’s Day is widely celebrated and commemorated. It is a national holiday in Ireland and there are parades in many cities with Irish communities including New York. Many pubs offer discounts on Irish stouts and beers with the best known ale making much of the day in its marketing promotions. St. Patrick’s Day is known among the more cynical as Saint Guinness Day. Arthur Chappell