St Patrick – Patron Saint of Ireland

Welcome to our series looking at the life and legends of the four saints of the UK&I – St George (England), St David (Wales), St Andrew (Scotland) and St Patrick (Ireland).

In this article we’ll focus on St Patrick, the most global of our four saints.

St Patrick

St Patrick was born in England during the reign of the Roman Empire, sometime in the 4th century. His place of birth is recorded in his own autobiography (entitled Confession) as  Bannavem Taburniae – although exactly where this was is not known. Suggestions are that it may have been in or close to Wales). 

“My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers.”

Opening lines to St Patrick’s autoboigraphy, Confessions

When he was around 16 years old, he was captured by Irish pirates and sold into Irish slavery. For six years he was forced to  work as a herdsman in the field. As a child, he was not a believer in God , but his faith grew strong in the years of captivity. 

St Patrick had regular ‘visions’ from above. In one such vision he was instructed to go to the coast where a boat was waiting for him. He followed the instructions, and surely enough he was able to escape back to England to be reunited with his family. 

He describes in his autobiography a subsequent vision in which people in Ireland were calling out to him ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us’. This spurred Patrick on to become ordained as a Catholic priest, and within a few years he returned to Ireland as a missionary. 

Ireland was at the time run by Druids, part of the Celtic culture. St Patrick faced much resistance and hardships. But his perseverance paid off, and over 30 years he converted pretty much all of Ireland to Catholicism. 

St Patrick died on the 17th March approx 401 AD. This date is celebrated as St Patrick’s Day, not just in Ireland, but around the world.

St Patrick’s Day Celebrations around the world

Over the centuries, the Irish community have flown from the homeland and settled across the globe. There are now over 40 million people of Irish heritage in the USA alone. They may have spread their wings, but their roots have grown ever stronger. St Patrick’s Day is now celebrated in no less than 35 countries across the globe.

New York celebrates with arguably the largest parade outside Ireland, while Tokyo imports Guinness especially for the occasion. Buenos Aires in Argentina, home to the world’s 5th largest Irish population becomes one big street party each year to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

Many iconic buildings, including the Great Wall of China, Sydney Opera House, The London Eye and the Burj Al Arab in Dubai “go green” to mark the occasion.

Irish pubs around the world become focal points of the celebrations, with the traditional Guinness, Irish Whiskey and the obligatory recital of limericks being traditions of the occasion.

The Shamrock

Although St Patrick never mentions the shamrock in his memoirs, he is often depicted with the three leaf clover representing the Holy Trinity.

St Patrick’s Day Greeting Cards

St Patrick’s Day is a time of wishing good luck on to others. Greeting cards are a very personal way to convey these sentiments. They are a way to spread “The luck of the Irish”. See our range of Saint Patrick’s Day cards here.