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History Series: St. Patrick
History of St. Patrick
Was He British?
Although much of the life of the patron saint and Apostle of Ireland is shrouded in legend, St. Patrick was probably born around AD 389. Stories are told of Patrick’s many contests with Druids, pagans, and polytheists, as well as the well-known but curious story of him driving the snakes from Ireland. More on that later.
What we know about him comes from his memoir, Confessio, which he wrote near the end of his life. It begins,
“I, Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, who was of the village of Bannavem Taberniea.”
Patrick Kidnapped
He was born in the Severn Valley in southwest England, though claims have been made that he was born in Wales or Scotland. In any case, he was British, not Irish. He was doubtless educated in pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain under a Christian influence with a reverence for the Roman Empire, of which he was a citizen. His father was a landowner, and together with his family, he lived on their estate.
At the age of sixteen, when he claimed he “did not then know the true God,” he was carried off by a band of Irish…
