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Simon & Schuster
March 2004
On Sale: March 17, 2004
244 pages
ISBN: 0743256344
EAN: 9780743256346
Kindle: B000NY11OC
Paperback / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
Ireland's patron saint has long been shrouded in legend: he
drove the snakes out of Ireland; he triumphed over Druids
and their supernatural powers; he used a shamrock to explain
the Christian mystery of the Trinity. But his true story is
more fascinating than the myths. We have no surviving image
of Patrick, but we do have two remarkable letters that he
wrote about himself and his beliefs -- letters that tell us
more about the heart and soul of this man than we know about
almost any of his contemporaries. In St. Patrick of
Ireland Philip Freeman brings the historic Patrick and
his world vividly to life.
Born in Britain late in
the fourth century to an aristocratic family, Patrick was
raised as a Roman citizen and a nominal Christian, destined
for the privileged life of the nobility. But just before his
sixteenth birthday, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and
abducted to Ireland, where he spent six lonely years as a
slave, tending sheep. Trapped in a foreign land, despondent,
and at the mercy of his master, Patrick's ordeal turned him
from an atheist to a true believer. After a vision in which
God told him he would go home, Patrick escaped captivity
and, following a perilous journey, returned to his
astonished parents. Even more astonishing was his
announcement that he intended to go back to Ireland and
devote the rest of his life to ministering to the people who
had once enslaved him.
One of Patrick's two
surviving letters is a declaration written to jealous
British bishops in defense of his activities in Ireland; the
other is a stinging condemnation of a ruthless warlord who
attacked and killed some of Patrick's Irish followers. Both
are powerful statements remarkable for their passion and
candor. Freeman includes them in full in new translations of
his own.
Combining Patrick's own heartfelt account
of his life as he revealed it himself with the turbulent
history of the British Isles in the last years of the Roman
Empire, St. Patrick of Ireland brilliantly brings to
life the real Patrick, shorn of legend, and shows how he
helped to change Irish history and culture.
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