Who was St Patrick?
One of the most widely known and widely celebrated Saints is that of Saint Patrick. He is the Patron Saint of Ireland and throughout the world on the 17th of March everyone becomes a little bit Irish for the day or claims to have some ancestry that hails from there (even when they have absolutely no link to the country whatsoever). Outcome the Shamrocks and the Green and Gold plus sales of Guinness rise exponentially. ST Patricks Day Gifts from Shamrock Gift get passed around and even rivers are turned to green.
You may be wondering who it is that is causing all this furore. So the tale goes Patrick was a Romano-Briton who was captured in his youth by Irish Pirates. He toiled away as a slave for many years learning the language and the culture of the place before affecting a daring escape back to Britain. He then took up religious orders preparing for a quiet pious life. Imagine his surprise then when the Pope decides he wants to spread the Christian Gospel through the Emerald isles and he knows just the guy with local knowledge to do it.
Off goes Patrick back again but this time he is armed with the word of God and a load of miracles to impress the pagan locals. He banishes all the snakes (not a tough job seeing as how there weren’t any in the first place) and then tries to teach the pagans the tricky subject of the holy trinity with Shamrocks.
