St Patrick And What He Did For Ireland

The shamrock is the national flower of Ireland and the reason for this is not because the shamrock grows in abundance in Ireland as many people presume.

The reason that the shamrock became the national flower for Ireland is down to St.Patrick. When he wanted to explain the Holy Trinity (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) to the people of Ireland who, up till then were mainly Pagans, he chose to use the shamrock in his explanation because the shamrock has three leaves which made his explanation more understandable to the Pagan communities. The shamrock is a species of clover that grew only in Ireland at that time.

As history would have it St.Patrick was born in the 4th Century and is thought to have been the one who brought Christianity to Ireland.

He described himself as being "a most humble-minded man, pouring fourth a continuous paean of thanks to his maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped idols and unclean things had become people of God"


There are no snakes in Ireland due to St.Patrick having drove them all out, this being his greatest claim to fame and for which he is best known for today. But there were never any snakes in Ireland in the first place but the Pagans used symbols of snakes in their worship before St.Patrick managed to convert them to Christianity and so after that the snake worship by Pagans stopped ..hence in that case this is what is meant when people say that St.Patrick got rid of the snakes from Ireland

It is widely thought that the death of St.Patrick was on March 17th in 460AD and that his jaw-bone was removed and preserved in a shrine made out of solid silver. Legend has it that the jaw-bone was often brought out to aid difficult child-birth, epileptic fits and to warn off the "evil eye"

Another account of St.Patricks death is that he died whilst in Glastonbury in England and that he is also buried there in the chapel of St.Patrick which is attatched to Glastonbury Abbey. Since his death churches worldwide have been named after St.Patrick in his honour.