Saint Patrick

Life, Legend and Legacy

Marian Broderick

• Publisher: The O'Brien Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781788491150
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

An engaging and rich exploration of Saint Patrick and his extraordinary influence on the world.

Forced into slavery at the age of fifteen, Patrick overcame all hardship to fulfil his calling: to bring the people of Ireland into the light of God's word. He carried out his mission of conversion and care at a crucial time of change, as Christianity spread across Romanised Europe and harnessed existing social structures and belief systems in Pagan Ireland.

Patrick met high kings and mythical heroes, Celtic gods and goddesses, lowly farmers and loyal servants, and he left lasting marks upon the Irish landscape and way of life. He was humble, courageous and resourceful, and was the first of Ireland's saints to write down his experiences. Thus began the cult of Saint Patrick, galvanised over 1500 years of devotion and scholarship, and culminating recently in the cheerful 'greening' of the world's most famous landmarks.

Drawing from recorded histories, 'tall tales' from all four provinces and beautiful illustrations, this is a light-hearted look at the global phenomenon of Saint Patrick, his life and his legacy, the facts and the fiction of his incredible journey from slave to international saint.

Part One

Ireland in Patrick’s Time

The water from a sacred spring was commonly believed to cure blindness, as shown in this 1869 print.

Fifth-century Ireland enjoyed a pagan, Celtic culture. It was polytheistic, featuring many deities, although by the 530s there were already small pockets of Christianity in the south of Ireland. Centuries-old practices, led by druids, included worshipping the gods of natural features, such as freshwater springs and trees, sacrificing animals and humans, and forecasting the future. Entirely dependent on a rich oral tradition, Ireland was a war-like, hierarchical society with strict rules, where personal attributes, such as physical bravery, skill in healing, hospitality and story-telling, were prized by the Celts.

Patrick knew all this when he arrived and he used this knowledge to push his own message home. He worked within the status quo where he could, taking over existing sacred sites and turning chieftains into bishops. But as we will see, he was also willing to face down any opposition he met.

For centuries after Patrick, Christianity and paganism coexisted in Ireland, and features of pagan life became incorporated into stories about Patrick. For our understanding of him today, we have to thank two of his earliest biographers, Muirchú and TÍrechán, who wrote about him in the seventh century, as well as Patrick’s own writings, the Confessio and the Letter to Coroticus. Because of them and the growth of the Patrician cult, Patrick’s work, life and death went from being a mere historical event, to a well-loved Irish legend, to an international legacy.

IRELAND’S VIPS

Long, long ago, beyond the misty space

Of twice a thousand years,

In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race

Taller than Roman spears…

The Celts, Thomas D’Arcy McGee

The Ireland Patrick came to was organised in a rigid class system, although there was no central state authority and everybody lived within clans on ancestral tribal land. Every person in every clan in the country had their place in society, from slave to king. The concept of honour was central, as was kinship and the strength of an oath.

The system was a pyramid. The majority at the bottom were unfree men and women. Above them were the ‘cowmen’, or farmers, who headed a household and rented a few cattle from their immediate superior, the tribal chieftain. This chieftain presided over his clan, but he paid homage to an under-king (for example, the kings of Thomond and of Ossory). The under-kings paid homage to provincial kings, or over-kings, who might lay claim to most of a province (such as the kings of Ulster and of Cashel). Finally, at the apex of the pyramid, there was the high king, or ardrí. High Kings were inaugurated at the Hill of Tara in County Meath in the centuries before and after Patrick’s arrival, and they expected support, subservience and cattle from all the provincial kings under them.

Chieftains and kings employed high-status poets and druids. Poets were responsible for immortalising clan leaders in the oral tradition, and druids were responsible for the spiritual life of the clan. The roles required years of training and a phenomenal memory; druids learned all the rituals for how to contact the Otherworld, placate the gods and protect the people.

BREHON MARRIAGE

The Brehon Code of Ireland was a sophisticated legal system that existed for up to two thousand years before Christianity. Memorised by special lawyers known as brehons, they began to be written down and changed after Patrick’s arrival.

Patrick got involved in trying to stamp out many aspects of the laws. Druids were his arch enemies and he banned their activities, such as sacrifices to the pagan gods. He also curtailed the activities of bards (although he did allow them still to practise, recognising the enormous talent and years of hard work that went into the feats of memory for which they were famous).

But he failed miserably when he tried to control Irish marriages.

The church idea of ‘one husband, one wife’ was not the Irish way in the fifth century. There were at least nine different types of marriages available – multiple marriages, cousin marriages, temporary marriages, marriages by abduction. It was common for a man to have a main or first wife, a second wife, and sometimes even a third wife.

Women had more rights in Ireland than in the rest of Europe at the time – and certainly more than British women as late as the nineteenth century. Divorce was acceptable, and so was temporary marriage, which a woman could leave after a year and a day, with no blame on either side. Each woman brought her own property, which she took with her if she left the marriage, plus any profit she made. All the wives’ children were legitimate children and could inherit. Taking more than one husband at a time, however, was not an option open to women.

None of this was to the liking of the Pope and the wider church but, despite Patrick’s efforts, Brehon marriage customs were to continue in many regions for another thousand years until the Elizabethan reconquest of Ireland in the sixteenth century.

DID YOU KNOW?

Green, now universally associated with St Patrick’s Day, was once considered unlucky because it was linked with fairies. Until recently, it was very unlucky in Ireland to get married in green.

RELIGION, PAGAN-STYLE

The druid’s altar and the druid’s deed

We scarce can trace,

There is not an undisputed deed

of all your race…

The Celts, Thomas D’Arcy McGee

The religious culture that Patrick found in Ireland was nature-based with many gods. It explained how the world had come into being, how to survive its apparent randomness and cruelty and how to improve your own luck.

In the pagan belief system, the Ancient Ones dominated different aspects of life: Lugh, the lord of light; Crom, the earth father, and the goddesses Macha, Tailte and Danu to name but a few. The gods and goddesses haunted special locations (those liminal or threshold areas often called ‘thin places’ in later folklore) in mountains, forests, bogs and springs, and it was well known that, at any moment, one of them might appear in any sort of mood. They could help you, make you rich, or ensure your victory against a rival tribe. But they could harm you too. They could send you bad weather. They could make your cows run dry, your crops fail. They could destroy your family. They could annihilate your whole clan.

Grange Stone Circle, County Limerick

The druids explained the signs of anger or approval, and they led the chieftain and his clan in time-honoured, nature-centred customs in stone circles and oak groves at certain times of the year, such as at midsummer and midwinter. They led celebrations during the four great fire festivals of the year, which were known as Imbolc (early spring), Bealtaine (early summer), Lughnasa (late summer) and Samhain (late autumn).

Imbolc – 1 February during lambing time.	This celebration of the end of winter and the longer days to come was taken over by the Christian feast day of St Brigid, another of Ireland’s patron saints, who replaced an earlier pagan fertility goddess of the same name.
Bealtaine – 1 May or May Day.	Traditionally a time when young men and women’s fancy turns lightly to thoughts of love. The bilberry is picked, and its white blossom is gi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Map
• Contents
• Introduction
• Patrick Q&A
• Part One: Ireland in Patrick’s Time
• Part Two: Patrick’s Story
• Part Three: Tall Tales from the Four Provinces
• Part Four: The Greening of the World
• Select Bibliography
• Illustrations
• Index of Place Names
• About the Author
• Copyright