What is St. Patrick best known for?
St. Patrick is best known for bringing Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century, according to Diarmuid Wheeler, headmaster of Chelsea Academy, a Catholic elementary and high school in Front Royal, Virginia. Called the “apostle of Ireland” despite the fact he wasn’t actually Irish-born, he is credited with converting the Gaelic Irish from paganism to Christianity. His missionary work involved establishing monasteries and churches across the island in places such as Saul and Armagh, which are now part of Northern Ireland. As the BBC reports, Armagh is considered the Christian capital of Ireland.
“The fact that we have his own works surviving, combined with the political efforts of some of his churches, particularly Armagh, put him in a perfect position to become identified as the main converting saint of Ireland,” Waidler says.
Many legends are also associated with St. Patrick, including that he drove the snakes out of Ireland and that he used a shamrock to teach the Holy Trinity .
What is St. Patrick the patron saint of?
Most Irish saints founded their own ecclesiastical sites, which would often promote their founder as a patron saint after his or her death, according to Waidler. “These sites could become quite powerful, as was the case with one of the sites associated with Patrick, in Armagh, Northern Ireland, which massively promoted the cult of Patrick in the early Middle Ages,” Waidler says. The Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, Armagh, is still located there today, though the building has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times in its history.
