“St. Patrick really existed,” said associate professor of history Fred Suppe. “We know this because we actually have two documents that he wrote.”
Maewyn Succat, or more popularly, St. Patrick, lived around 400 A.D., historians estimate. Despite leaving behind written documents, they were left undated, which is why the exact time span of his life is unknown.
He wrote a spiritual biography, which he titled “Confession,” Suppe said. This document contains information about his early life and his vision from God.
Despite the country’s involvement in the holiday, St. Patrick wasn’t actually Irish. He was born into a Christian family in the town of Bannavem Taburniae off the coast of Britain, which was part of the Roman empire at the time. His father was a priest and his grandfather was a deacon, an ordained minister who works underneath a priest.
Suppe said when St. Patrick was 16 years old, Irish invaders raided his town, capturing him and “many others.” As St. Patrick wrote in “Confession,” he spent the next six years enslaved in northern Ireland herding animals.
Near the end of his six years, St. Patrick received a vision from God –– an angel in a dream –– that told him to leave Ireland. He escaped slavery and traveled from northern Ireland to a port in the southeast coast of Ireland, where he found a merchant ship and “talked his way onto it,” Suppe said.
“And after many adventures, and we’re not sure exactly how much time, he finally made his way home to where he had grown up,” Suppe said.
After being home for a few years, St. Patrick received another vision from God telling him to return to Ireland and bring the Christian faith with him. Suppe said historians estimate this was around 432 A.D.
St. Patrick then returned to northern Ireland, which was subdivided into many tribes, and gained permission from local kings in order to preach to the people. The kings approved and after a second 60-day enslavement, he succeeded in converting many of the people in Ireland to Christianity.
He also established the Bishop Reich of Armagh, a Christian hierarchy in Ireland, which still exists today as a Christian center, Suppe said. For these successes, St. Patrick is credited as the first person to bring Christianity to Ireland.
“He is a figure [to the Irish] like George Washington is to the states,” Suppe said.
The year of the first St. Patrick’s Day celebration is unknown, but Suppe said St. Patrick was popularly remembered by the O’Neil family, who were a dominant royal Irish family. The O’Neil family promoted and sponsored St. Patrick and the celebration of his achievements.
By the year 700 A.D., scholars had written biographies about St. Patrick, so Suppe believes his celebration began annually by that year.
St. Patrick’s Day officially became recognized as a holiday in the 1800s. The booming celebration of St. Patrick’s Day came after Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom in 1801.
“Many Irish nationalists weren’t happy about that,” Suppe said. “They didn’t like being called ‘West Britain.’ And so, during the 1800s, many Irish nationalists were looking for things that were distinctively Irish that the Irish could use as symbols of their identity.”
Shortly after declaring the day a holiday, many Irish families immigrated to the United States and out of homesickness, began celebrating St. Patrick’s Day as a way to remember their Irish heritage, Suppe said.
In the United States, St. Patrick’s Day is often celebrated with parades.
“Here we are in ‘merica adopting a holiday that belongs to another tradition,” Suppe said.
Contact Hannah Gunnell with comments at hrgunnell@bsu.edu.
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