Erin Go Bragh

(Ireland Forever)

Mary Patricia Trainor

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, a time for celebration.

We drink green beer, eat corned beef and cabbage, and offer a shamrock for good luck.

Nothing’s too much for the man who chased snakes out of Ireland. Right? I agree, but let’s clear up a few things first.

The man we call Patrick was a slave who returned to be among his former captors.

This is the core of the man, and it’s an exceptional response. Here’s some more.

At the age of 16, Patrick was taken prisoner by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland. There, he spent around six years, enslaved as a shepherd — lonely and afraid, turning to religion for solace. 

Most people, once they escape their “prison,” never look back. Patrick did the opposite. He felt there was work there to be done.

After six years of captivity, Patrick heard a voice telling him his ship was ready to take him home.

He traveled 200 miles to the nearest port and managed to persuade a captain to let him stow away. He made it back to Britain and his family.

A nice enough story if it ended there.

But it doesn’t.

After years of study, he returned to Ireland — his mission twofold: to minister to Christians already in Ireland, and to convert the non-believers. 

He wasn’t responding to an obligation. He was responding to “a calling.”

And he wasn’t even Irish. He was born in either Scotland or northern England and described himself as a Roman and a Briton. 

“Patrick” was not his birth name. When the Pope authorized him to evangelize Ireland, he was prophetically named Patricius, meaning “father of citizens.” 

Because of his enslavement, Patrick missed out on formal education. His education was limited to religious teachings, and he apparently taught himself to read and write beyond basic Latin.

Most of us would applaud these results. But the lack of formal schooling embarrassed him — yet his success as a missionary is attributed to tenacity and “dogged determination,” even in the face of doubts about his own self-worth.

He actually wrote about this insecurity in his autobiography, Confessio — one of the oldest personal spiritual memoirs.

Here’s a surprising twist: Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic Church — simply because he lived before there was a formal canonization process.

He was proclaimed a saint by the people of Ireland His feast day wasn’t even added to the universal Church calendar until the 1600s.

Oh, and the snake stories are not real. Ireland has no snakes, then or now. The legend is regarded as a metaphor for Patrick’s Christianizing efforts, perhaps drawing on the Judeo-Christian tradition of snakes as symbols of evil.

In other words, he wasn’t driving out reptiles — he was driving out paganism. 

Patrick’s story is about  a traumatized teen-ager who became a willing exile for the sake of the very people who had enslaved him.

That’s not a story about green beer, corned beef and cabbage, or even the noble shamrock.

That’s a story about forgiveness, resilience, and radical purpose.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​