![]() ![]() ![]() Patrick escaped, but back in England, in a dream he heard the voice of the Irish at a place on the western seaboard, calling “Come and walk among the Irish once again,” and he realised his life mission. Salvador Ryan, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth He was brought to Ireland and tended herds, praying a hundred times by day, and a hundred times by night. What we know from St Patrick’s own writings, his Confessions and the Letter to Coriticos, is that he was the son of a deacon, grandson of a priest and was enslaved aged 16. The Professor of Ecclesiastical History at St Patrick’s College Maynooth said many of the stories circulated about Patrick come from oral tradition, but “something would not circulate without it being depicted in iconography,” so the appearance of St Patrick holding a shamrock so late in history is “quite unusual”. “The first image of Patrick holding a shamrock is on a half-penny coin which was minted in Dublin in 1674,” Salvador Ryan told. The legend that St Patrick’s expelled snakes from Ireland only appeared in a book by a Cistercian monk, Jocelin of Furness, in the 12 th century and St Patrick’s association with the shamrock came much later in the 17 th century. Home > News > Scholar addresses facts and fictions of St Patrick Scholar addresses facts and fictions of St Patrick ![]()
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