What was st. patrick known for

The holiday marks St. Ireland only officially started celebrating the day in Since the Emerald Isle is mainly catholic and St. Never call it St. According to the legend, he was sold into slavery in Ireland when he was a teenager, became religious, escaped back to England, became an ordained priest named Patrick and started converting all of the Irish Celtic pagans to Christianity.

According to the legend, St. Patrick freed Ireland from snakes. According to biologists , there were never any actual snakes in Ireland. The diplomatic explanation is that the snakes are a metaphor for paganism that was forced out by St. Patrick used shamrocks aka clovers to explain the holy trinity God, Son and Holy Spirit to the Irish. One night Patrick dreamed that Satan tested his faith by dropping an enormous rock on him. The rock disappeared. Patrick took it as a kind of epiphany.

He later wrote:. Patrick had other peculiar visions, too. Years into his mission, someone, it seems, told a dirty secret about Patrick to his fellow bishops. Patrick did not tell us what he did — worship idols? Engage in a forbidden sexual practice? Take gifts from converts? During this time, he worked as a shepherd, outdoors and away from people.

Lonely and afraid, he turned to his religion for solace, becoming a devout Christian. It is also believed that Patrick first began to dream of converting the Irish people to Christianity during his captivity. After more than six years as a prisoner, Patrick escaped. To do so, Patrick walked nearly miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast. After escaping to Britain, Patrick reported that he experienced a second revelation—an angel in a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary.

Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than 15 years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission: to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish. Interestingly, this mission contradicts the widely held notion that Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland. Patrick's Day Traditions. Familiar with the Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs.

For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish. Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion.

The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. Patrick's Day Was Made in America. With the arrival of St. But how many people really know what St. Patrick was all about? The biggest misconception about St. Patrick was that he was Irish. Born in England circa , St. From there, he started his journey to converting the Irish to Christianity and becoming an Irish patron saint. Patrick — it was blue.