Celtic Roots Craic 77 – Patrick – 'a stone plucked from the mire'

There are lots of stories about St. Patrick – but many of them are not based on facts. For a start he wasn’t an Irishman – he originally lived in Roman Britain, possibly in Wales. He was kidnapped from there and became a slave in Co. Antrim, herding sheep on Slemish mountain, near Ballymena.

One of the false legends about Patrick is that he banished snakes from Ireland – which brings me to my wife’s favourite joke: ‘What did Patrick say when he was driving the snakes out of Ireland? Are yez alright in the back, there?’ Yeah! 

Actually Roman historians had reported many years before that there were no snakes in Ireland. So, the legend probably sprang up because of Patrick’s confrontation with the Druids – the ’snakes’ probably referring to the demonic druid spirits.

When he was captured Patrick probably wasn’t a professing Christian.. When he was forced to work for six years as a slave he remembered what he had been taught back home and became a devout believer. He later claimed that, ‘in one day I would pray up to one hundred times, and at night perhaps the same’. 

Eventually Patrick – actually Padraig, in Irish – escaped from Ireland after hearing a voice telling him that his ship was ready. Later, after a few years of study and training as a priest, then bishop, he had a vision of a man carrying letters, who gave him one headed, ‘The voice of the Irish’. He imagined the people of Ireland calling out to him, ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us’. So he returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary.

In his Confession he described himself as being, ‘like a stone lying deep in the mud. Then He who is powerful came and lifted me up and placed me on the very top of the wall.’  And later he said, ‘Whatever comes about for me, good or bad, I ought to accept them equally and give thanks to God’. 

Maybe we could learn from Patrick. Patrick learned that giving thanks – even when forced into slavery – changed things, in particular it changed him – so that the difficult times didn’t bring him down, instead he said he was ‘lifted up’. 

You may not have the same confidence and trust as Patrick and his fellow saints, but I recommend their way of looking at things – it certainly works for me!