Our Patron Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick (c. 390 - 460)[2] (Latin: Patricius,[3] Irish: Naomh Pádraig) was a Roman Britain-born Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland, along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. He was educated at a monastery and school of divinity founded by Illtud (now Llantwit Major).

When he was about 14 he was captured by Irish raiders and taken from his native Wales as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. 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 and no link can be made between Patrick and any church.

By the eighth century he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.

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. Two letters from him survive, along with later hagiographies from the seventh century onwards. Many of these works cannot be taken as authentic traditions. Uncritical acceptance of the Annals of Ulster would imply that he lived from 340 to 440, and ministered in what is modern day northern Ireland from 428 onwards.

Saint Patrick's Day (17 March) is celebrated both in and outside of Ireland, as both a liturgical and non-liturgical holiday. Outside of Ireland, it can be a celebration of Ireland itself. In the universal Roman Catholic Church it is an optional memorial, though in the dioceses of Ireland it is a both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation.

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