Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17th is celebrated worldwide, by people of many nations, races and cultures. Historians researching our main man state that his name was Maewyn Succat from an Anglo-Roman family born at Banna Venta Berniae, which is believed to be in Wales, in 415 AD.
When he was 16 years of age he was captured by an Irish pagan warlord, Niall of the Nine Hostages, and he spent six miserable years in Ireland until he escaped to France.
After entering the church, he later returned to Ireland as a missionary in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked.
Patrick’s position as a foreigner in Ireland is said not to have been an easy one. His refusal to accept gifts from kings placed him outside the normal ties of kinship, fosterage and affinity. Legally he was without protection, and he says that he was on one occasion beaten, robbed of all he had, and put in chains, perhaps awaiting execution.
The available body of evidence does not allow the dates of Patrick’s life to be fixed with certainty, but it appears that he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the second half of the fifth century.
By the eighth century he had become our patron saint and legend credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island, though all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes.
One suggestion is that snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids of that time, as shown for instance on coins minted in Gaul. He has left us the Shamrock as a national emblem, thanks to its usage by Christian religious groups as a symbol of the ‘Divine Trinity’ and pilgrims make their way up Croagh Patrick every year, some barefooted.
The reputed burial place of St. Patrick is in Downpatrick. ‘The Annals of Ulster’ place Patrick’s death in 493, or at least in the early years of that decade.
There is a Saint Patrick Visitor Centre in a modern exhibition complex located there with a permanent interpretative centre featuring interactive displays on the life and story of Saint Patrick. It provides the only permanent exhibition centre in the world devoted to Saint Patrick.