Patrick

Patrick (Patricius) was a native of late Roman Britain and is Ireland's patron saint. The dates of his birth and death are disputed; that he flourished in the 5th century is agreed. Two Latin texts written by Patrick are the oldest documents in Irish history and the sole contemporary witness to his life. Neither is autobiographical. The Confession, the longer of the two, is a defence of his mission in answer to detractors. That mission, by his own testimony, was to bring to the faith the pagan Irish living ‘at the ends of the earth’ (in ultimis terrae), ‘as far as where there is no one beyond’ (usque ubi nemo ultra est). In putting the case Patrick identifies himself as the son of a deacon and the grandson of a priest. He elaborates only to mention his capture at the age of 16 during a raid on his father's estate, his enslavement for six years in Ireland, his escape from the country, and his eventual decision to return. Patrick tells of a dream in which people living beside Silva Vocluti, near the ‘western sea’ (mare occidentale—literally the ‘sea of the setting [of the sun]’, i.e. the Atlantic), besought him to ‘come and walk once more’ among them. He answered the call, returned to Ireland, and seems never to have left. His ambit, apparently, was Ireland's northern half. Irish Christian communities already existed (see Palladius), but Patrick's mission was to the unconverted.

In the Confession Patrick sets out his creed and claims his episcopate to be divinely inspired. Those he addresses are probably British clergy, seemingly suspicious of his evangelical role and/or of the scope of his jurisdiction. The second Patrician text is a letter of excommunication to the soldiers of one Coroticus, a British chief (presumably resident in Britain, but conceivably in Ireland) who had murdered some of his converts and enslaved others. Patrick uses the weight of his authority to denounce.

Patrick declares himself to be ‘untaught’ (indoctus) and lacking in fluency, and scholarship has traditionally acquiesced. But this orthodoxy is challenged by Howlett, who argues that Patrick has so constructed the Confession (using, among other devices, chiasmus and division by extreme and mean ratio) as simultaneously to damn his detractors with faint praise, display the scope of his Latinity, and ensure the accurate transmission of his text. An analogous case is made in respect of the Letter, a composition of exactly 1,300 words. Wide implications also attend the biblical, patristic, and magisterial apparatus published by Conneely.

Among the saints' cults of medieval Ireland that of Patrick is paramount. The oldest relevant document, perhaps of the early 7th century, is ‘Audite omnes amantes’, a hymn in Patrick's praise. A letter of the 630s refers to him as ‘our father’ (papa noster). Three texts in the Book of Armagh are more explicity devoted to his cult: the Book of the Angel, c. 680, is the oldest witness to a claim on the part of Armagh to be the see of Patrick and Ireland's primatial church; a life by Muirchú and a ‘memoir’ by Tírechán (both of whom used written sources) belong to the later 7th century and form the oldest extant horizon of the Patrician legend. The 9th‐century Bethu Pátraic or Tripartite Life (the first in the vernacular) built upon its predecessors and represents the apogee of Patrician hagiography. Armagh had by now monopolized the cult of Patrick in liaison with the Uí Néill kings of the north; in IIII the primacy of Armagh was papally endorsed. (See Primatial Controversy.)

The abbots of Armagh, the comarbai Pátraic, exhibited the insignia of the saint: Patrick's bell, crozier, and ‘canon’. The latter is the Book of Armagh, written in 807 and enshrined in 937 (although the shrine has since been lost). The archaeology of the bell is uncertain and a date earlier than the 10th century could hardly be defended. The crozier is first mentioned in 789 and was destroyed in 1538.

The cult of Patrick entered a new phase under Anglo‐Norman patronage in the 12th century. At Downpatrick in 1185 John de Courcy engineered the discovery and translation of what were held to be Patrick's remains (which Armagh never claimed to possess), together with those of Column Cille and Brigid. The existence of ‘St Patrick's Purgatory’ at Lough Derg, Co. Donegal, is attested for the first time in the same century and rapidly became a destination for continental as well as Irish pilgrims. The vernacular tradition so completely absorbed the Patrician legend as to ensure its survival beyond the Reformation. Growing nationalist sensibilities thereafter found a focus in Patrick as figurehead of an Irish identity. The 20th century has seen the entrenchment of a popular and largely unhistorical view of Patrick as well as scholarly appraisals of great refinement. In parallel with consensus (or indifference) in today's Republic, the relative importance of Patrick to its two communities continues to exercise minds in the divided north.

Bibliography

Bieler, L. , Libri epistolarum Sancti Patricii episcopi (1952)
Conneely, D. , St Patrick's Letters: A Study of their Theological Dimension(1993)
Howlett, D. R. , Liber epistolarum Sancti Patricii episcopi: The Book of Letters of Saint Patrick the Bishop (1994)

Cormac Bourke