St. Patrick was Irish
St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, but he himself was not a child of
the old sod. He was British, and his claim to fame was converting the Irish
to Christianity. His mission to Ireland late in the fifth century was his
second visit - on the first occasion he had been taken there as a captive of
Irish pirates and sold into slavery. St. Patrick never got over that early
experience and never felt quite at home in Ireland. He described the
inhabitants of the Emerald Isle as "savage barbarians". According to E. J.
Dillon, author of a book on St. Patrick, "Even at the end of his life he
expected daily a violent death, to be robbed or reduced to slavery."
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