The Top 3 Myths of Saint Patrick’s Day

On March 17th everyone is Irish! We wear green, drink green beer and shamrock shakes for Saint Patrick. Saint Patrick has become a beloved figure in the Western Hemisphere, but where did Saint Patrick come from?  What did he do to become so beloved?

Believe it or not, Saint Patrick is not a canonized saint by the Catholic Church. Patrick was deemed a “saint” before the official canonization process was formed.  Check out the list of officially canonized saints here.  Yes, Patrick was responsible for missionary journeys in Ireland, but there is also a lot of misinformation about Patrick:

MYTH #1 Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.

Snakes seem to embody everything evil.  We get a lot of distrust of snakes from the book of Genesis because Satan is represented as a serpent.  In addition, snakes are elusive, deadly, and just plain scary.

The Patrick snake myth is dispelled:

Ireland, after all, is surrounded by icy ocean waters—much too cold to allow snakes to migrate from Britain or anywhere else. But since snakes often represent evil in literature, “when Patrick drives the snakes out of Ireland, it is symbolically saying he drove the old, evil, pagan ways out of Ireland [and] brought in a new age…

Myth #2 Saint Patrick was Irish

Well, sort of… Patrick was born in modern day Britain and was a slave.  Edward T. O’Donnell, Associate Professor of History at Holy Cross College and author of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History explains:

Although no one knows for certain where St. Patrick was born, based on his own account it was most likely in southwestern Britain. As a result, it’s fairly common to find various pundits gleefully commenting on the “irony” that Ireland’s patron saint was actually “English.” The problem, of course, is that no one in the 5th century was what we would call “English.” Rather, the people living in present-day England were Romanized Celts, or Britons. So Patrick is thus more accurately called a Celtic Briton, son of a low-level Roman official.

Myth #3 Saint Patrick used a three-leaf clover to teach the theology of the Trinity

Nowhere in Patrick’s writings do we find this fact.  We know of two works that are attributed to Patrick. The autobiographical Confession (also called Declaration) and his Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus (Coroticus was a slave trader).  The clover legend was discovered after his death.

So if there are all these myths, what did Patrick actually do?  Well, a lot:

He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick’s Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland.

Did St. Patrick convert all of Ireland?  Most likely not, however, his missionary work did convert many populations of Ireland, but other missionaries came after Patrick. The fact remains Patrick was the most successful missionary, but he was not the first. Pope Celestine sent another missionary, Palladius, to Ireland prior to Patrick’s mission, but he did not achieve the type of success that Patrick did.