Saint Patrick is most famous for being Ireland’s patron saint and is celebrated around the world, even by non-Irish people, on St. Patrick’s Day. This is not only the date of his death, but a celebration of his life, and a celebration also of all that is Irish.

Although accepted as being active during the latter half of the 5th century, St. Patrick’s birth and death cannot be dated. Some records claim he came to Ireland in 432AD, and that he died on March 17 462AD, while others that he died in 492AD. The Annals weren’t compiled until the mid-6th century, and combine stories seen as both historical and mythological, and unfortunately, as such, they cannot be relied upon for accuracy.

Patrick was born into a Roman British family in the UK, possibly at Ravenglass in Cumbria. His father was a deacon named Calipurnias.

When he was just 16, Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and brought to either Slemish (in Irish Sliabh Mis), a striking mountain near Ballymena in Co Antrim, or Fochill near Killala Bay (in Irish Cuan Chill Ala), the estuary of the River Moy, where he was sold as a slave, and subsequently worked as a shepherd for six years.

During this time, he seemed to go through some kind of spiritual epiphany, when he came to know God, praying up to a hundred times a day. (I would too if I thought it might help me escape slavery and find my way back home!) In his Confessio, he claims he heard a voice in a dream instructing him to leave Ireland in a ship that was waiting for him in a port two hundred miles away.

Some say this port was in Wicklow. When he got there, there was indeed a ship about to sail for England, but the crew refused to take him at first. Patrick turned to prayer, which God duly answered, for before he had even finished his devotions, the Captain had a sudden change of heart, and agreed to take him on board.

After three days at sea, they landed, not in another port as expected, but in a strange wilderness where they wandered for twenty-eight days without coming across any signs of civilization. At this point, they had run out of food, and the crew asked Patrick to pray to his God to provide for them. Clearly, their own pagan Gods had forsaken them. Patrick readily obliged, and immediately they came across a herd of wild boar. They killed many and feasted for two days, before continuing their journey.

Patrick returned home and devoted himself to Christianity. After a few years, he had a vision in which a man named Victoricus (probably Saint Vitricius, bishop of Rouen) gave him a letter that came from the people of Ireland, begging him to return and teach them the new religion. It was a calling Patrick could not deny.

Returning to Wicklow, Patrick was met with hostility from the locals, and sought refuge off the coast of Skerries, before continuing with his mission.

It is said that he founded his first church at Saul (in Irish Sabhall Phádraig, meaning ‘Patrick’s Barn’) in Co Down. Apparently, strong currents had swept his boat through Stranford Lough and into the mouth of the Slaney River. The local chieftain, Dichu subsequently converted and gave him the barn.

It was here that he was brought when he died, and was buried nearby at Downpatrick. St Patrick’s Memorial Church is reputed to be built on the site of his grave.

The Confessio and the Epistola are fascinating because they seem to relate to some transgression for which Patrick was put on trial. It’s not clear exactly what happened, but it is thought that the writing of the Epistola resulted in Patrick writing his Confessio, perhaps whilst awaiting the outcome of his trial.

Apparently, King Ceretic Guletic had taken some Christian Irish converts and sold them into slavery. Enraged, Patrick tackled the King only to be confronted with ridicule. He, therefore, wrote the Epistola to Ceretic’s Warband, effectively excommunicating them all.

This leads to fellow Christians, once thought of as friends, making accusations against him which are not explicit in the letter, although he writes that he gave back all the gifts given to him by wealthy women, that he did not take payment for all the baptisms he made although he made many thousands, or for ordaining priests and that he himself paid for all the gifts given to the kings and judges.

These gifts may have been bribes intended to buy him the freedom to bring his religion to the masses. In any case, this protestation of innocence and denial of receiving gifts and money smacks of a financial misdemeanor. Perhaps St. Patrick wasn’t quite as saintly as once thought.

As well as his own letters, his life was recorded by two late 7th-century writers, Tírechán, and Muirchiu moccu Macthenni. Both drew upon the earlier lost Book of Ultán, written most probably by Ultan of Ardbraccan, who was Tírechán’s foster father.

Interestingly, they portray quite a different figure from the good saintly character we have been led to believe. They claim he was something of a tempestuous warrior, attacking druids and their idols, and cursing kings and their kingdoms. This ties in with some of the myths about him, which do not describe a peaceful benevolent man of God, but rather a zealous tyrant.

They also intimate that he targeted the conversion of females, preferably those of royal status and wealthy noblewomen, accepting gifts from them, and persuading them to become nuns and found religious orders, much to the chagrin of their families. He also targeted slaves and the poor, who were only too eager to find a way out of the drudgery and hardship of their lives.

Most famously, Patrick is said to be responsible for driving all serpents from Ireland. This is an interesting story, because, according to naturalist Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, “at no time has there ever been any suggestion of snakes in Ireland, so [there was] nothing for St. Patrick to banish.” He should know, having searched extensively through Irish fossil collections and records.

Closer to home, for me, is the story of Patrick saving the Irish from the worship of Crom Cruach on the plain of Magh Slecht in Co Cavan. This is a grisly story involving the annual sacrifice of the nation’s every firstborn child by smashing their heads on the idol stone known as the Killycluggin Stone and sprinkling the blood around the stone circle in return for a good crop. Fortunately, Patrick showed up, smashed the stone, and banished the devil which flew out of it to hell.

As this was happening, ‘ three-quarters of the men of Ireland’ (the High King’s Warband), and the High King Tigernmas himself was mysteriously slaughtered as they knelt in their devotions, allegedly by their own god, according to Christian observers. Sounds like the work of an army sweeping down upon them, to me.

We already know how sacred the number three was to the ancient pagans; it is a pattern seen repeated over and over again in all things considered important and powerful to them, such as the maiden-mother-crone aspect of certain female Irish deities, birth-life-death, mind-body-spirit, and so on. The pagans had long considered the shamrock as a sacred symbol, its three heart-shaped green leaves representing rebirth and the cycle of life.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Patrick should choose to use it to illustrate the Christian Holy Trinity. Clearly, it was a symbol the pagans resisted giving up, and the church was very clever at adopting the pagan customs they couldn’t destroy and using them to illustrate their own beliefs.

Today, there are many places in Ireland that still bear Patrick’s name or legacy. Croagh Patrick is a mountain in Co Mayo where he was said to have fasted for the forty days and nights of Lent before vanquishing the serpents of Ireland. At 764m, it is the third-highest mountain in the county.

Curiously, Patrick has never formally been canonized by the Pope and therefore is not actually recognized as a saint by some. In the early years of Christianity, saints were made on a local level by a local church very soon after their death … which perhaps explains why there are so many in Ireland.

St. Patrick’s life is one of semi-historic, semi-mythological proportions. As with much of Ireland’s early past, it is impossible to pull apart fact and myth. There is no doubt, however, that he made a huge and lasting impact on the people of this land.

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*Ali Isaac lives in beautiful rural Co Cavan in Ireland, and is the author of two books based on Irish mythology, “Conor Kelly and The Four Treasures of Eirean,” and “Conor Kelly and The Fenian King.” Ali regularly posts on topics of Irish interest on her blog, AliIsaacStoryteller.com

* Originally published in November 2015. Updated in 2025. 

Mother’s Day in Ireland is Sunday, March 15! Here are some wise and hilarious one-liners that Irish Mammies tend to throw about to make you smile.

There is nothing like an Irish mammy and nothing better than her wit and wisdom. Inspired by Ireland’s Mother’s Day we had a whip-round the office and asked for some opinions.

There is no decency in vanity, stand tall and ignore the judgmental glare of others.

“Don’t leave the house without clean underwear, in case you get run over by a bus.”

There were not many buses in Roscommon, but I knew what she meant. what if you were in a traffic accident?

“Be grateful for your own lot.”

Possibly one of the most important and difficult lessons to learn, to be content with what you have, for there will always be greater and always those who are less well off.

“Your health is your wealth.”

Despite employing this mantra for life, the words usually fail to resonate until we find ourselves under the weather. Truer words could never be spoken.

“Sit down and have a nice cup of tea.”

In Ireland, tea is the solution to many of life’s great problems. Tea and sympathy when your Mom sees you are having a hard time with something.

Despite having an ample supply of both Barry’s and Lyons teabags here in NY, nothing compares to a hot drop of tea at home. There is nothing like hearing the click of the kettle before your mother drops the welcome words, “Tea anybody?”

 “I would give you the bit out of my mouth.”

Irish Mammies and most mams, in general, have to be the most selfless breed who inhabit the earth. Happy to give you the clothes off their back, their sense of giving is eternal.

“Be a good host.”

“Father Ted’s” Missus Doyle took it to a whole different level, but my mother and all of her sisters (and come to think of it my sisters) are the best hosts going. A bit also rubbed off on my brother too! If you invite someone to your home, make them feel welcome.

“Never go to a house with one arm as long as the other.”

From the other angle, if someone invites you to their home, never show up empty-handed (you should be carrying something, so both arms are not the same length!). It’s the gesture, even a pack of biscuits (aka cookies).

“I will wash your mouth out with soap.”

Still, something my mother catches me on, don’t be vulgar. There is nothing endearing about a filthy mouth.

“Eat everything on that plate.”

My mother taught me about stamina, endurance and stomaching things you don’t like. My brother taught me how to hide my leftover crusts behind the toaster.

* Originally published in August 2016, last updated in March 2026. 

George Brent, one of the several Irishmen who fought in the Easter Rising 1916 and went on to enjoy a Hollywood career, was once known as Michael Collins’ doppelganger.

* In 2016, on the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, Dermot McEvoy looked back at Brent’s life, as well as that of the other surprising players in the cause of Irish independence who are more well known for other reasons. On the anniversary of Brent’s birth, we look back on these extraordinary people:

One of the odd coincidences of Ireland’s fight for freedom is that several key players went from the middle of a revolution to become prominent players in Hollywood.

Arthur Shields, the younger brother of Academy Award-winner Barry Fitzgerald (“Going My Way”), was a member of the Irish Volunteers. On Easter Monday, he retrieved his rifle from under the stage at the Abbey Theatre and went to fight in the GPO. He was active during Easter Week in O’Connell and Westmoreland Streets and eventually surrendered with the rest of the GPO rebels in Moore Street.

And not everyone who went to Hollywood was on the side of the rebels. In that famous picture of Patrick Pearse surrendering to General Lowe in Parnell Street on Easter Saturday, standing to the right of the general is his son, John Muir Lowe.

Ten years after the Rising, Lowe, now known as John Loder, was plying his new trade in Hollywood. Perhaps his greatest Hollywood achievement would be his marriage to screen siren Hedy Lamarr.

Ironically, both Shields and Loder, paces apart on Moore Street on that historic Easter Saturday, would appear together in John Ford’s “How Green Was My Valley” twenty-five years later.

Although he never spoke about it, one Irish rebel had a remarkable career both as a revolutionary and as a Hollywood matinee idol. As George Brendan Nolan, he worked as a courier and doppelganger to the legendary Michael Collins. In Hollywood, renamed as George Brent, he was to star in numerous motion pictures, teaming up with Bette Davis an extraordinary eleven times, including in such classics as “Dark Victory” and “Jezebel,” which earned Davis the Best Actress Oscar.

He also had a steamy off-screen affair with Davis which lasted over two years. And one could say Brent definitely “went Hollywood,” matching the stereotype by marrying five times, including a short union with Ann Sheridan, the legendary “Oomph Girl” of Warner Brothers fame in the 1930s and 40s.

Brent is probably most famous for his portrayal of Professor Warren, the affable, albeit cold-blooded killer, in the cinema classic “The Spiral Staircase,” opposite Dorothy McGuire as the terrified mute.

Several of Brent’s biographies mention that he belonged to one of the IRA’s Active Service Units (ASU). ASUs were squads put together by IRA leaders for a particular purpose. They were full-time jobs for which the members received a salary. For example, Michael Collins’ famed Squad “The Twelve Apostles” was an ASU unit charged with carrying out assassinations against the British Secret Service. Most ASUs were charged with harassing the British or doing such things as stealing munitions or automobiles.

I checked through the Irish Army’s pension and witness statements and did find a Gerald Nolan who was a member of an ASU. But it is not the same Nolan, as he was older than Brent and a veteran of the Rising. Brent was born in 1904, making him only 16 when he worked for Collins. He would have been too young to participate in 1916.

But I did come across an interesting piece written by Helena Mulkerns, granddaughter of Jimmy Mulkerns, the legendary “Rajah of Frongoch.” Published in the Irish Echo in 1997 “So, what did you do in the war, Grampa?” Helena recalls the colorful life of her grandfather and his connection to both Collins and Brent.

Mulkerns fought in the Church Street/North King Street area—one of the bloodiest locations—during Easter Week and like a lot of the rebels eventually ended up in the Frongoch prison camp in Wales along with such prominent future rebel leaders as Richard Mulcahy, Dick McKee, and Collins. Mulkerns became the Frongoch “Rajah” because of all the entertaining he did in the camp to keep up the spirits of the imprisoned rebels.

Mulkerns’ work is recalled by Lyn Ebenezer in “Fron-goch: And the Birth of the IRA”: “On the 8th of August, another concert was held…That night the chairman was Jimmy Mulkerns, who, in the words of Sean O’Mahony, appeared ‘in the flowing robes of an Oriental,’ and was introduced by Peadar O’Brien as ‘The Rajah of Fron-goch,’ a nickname that stuck. Before his arrest and internment, Mulkerns had led a troupe of traveling entertainers named Palmer and Rimlock. He was also a singer-comedian and wrote songs and poems.” (One of the songs which he copyrighted under the pseudonym “The Rajah of Frongoch” is “Come Along and Join the British Army,” a satirical ditty calling out Irish MPs John Redmond and John Dillon for supporting the British Great War effort.)

According to Jimmy Mulkerns’ application for a pension from the Irish Army in 1935, after getting out of Frongoch in December 1916, he “received direct orders from M. Collins to work for National Aid.” [The National Aid and Volunteers Dependants Fund was the charity that Collins was running for indigent families who had taken part in the Rising.] He also kept his day job at the General Electric Company at #13 Trinity Street, just off Dame Street. Here he kept several bikes for Collins, plus changes of clothes. This was a favorite neighborhood for Collins, a short walk away from several of his offices and the Wicklow Hotel where he was known to hang out. Soon Mulkerns, the entertainer, would become a mentor to the aspiring Hollywood actor, Brent.

Helena Mulkerns wrote about Brent as a courier for Collins, but also about his second job as Collins’ doppelganger. “In Dublin,” she wrote, “his most convincing double was a young actor George Brendan Nolan. A tall, well-built young man that fit Collins’s official description, Nolan was interested in the stage but was also a full member of the Fianna Éireann. For many months he played the dangerous but successful role of stand-in for Ireland’s most wanted man. He would conspicuously attend a public meeting or event as a ‘Big Fella’ in expensive suits, and since the authorities were never quite sure what Collins looked like, they would follow him, thereby leaving the real leader free to go about his business.”

Then, suddenly, in 1920, Brent disappeared. “…Dublin Castle issued a warrant for Nolan’s arrest,” wrote Helena, “that charged him with treason against the state, a crime punishable by execution, Collins’s spies immediately informed the leader who thus arranged Nolan’s urgent, secret escape out of Cobh harbor in County Cork. As the Black and Tans thundered through the quiet village of Watergrasshill, just 12 miles away, bent on arresting Nolan, he was already bound for New York and a new life. They had missed their quarry by only a few hours.”

Jimmy Mulkerns was arrested right after Bloody Sunday in November 1920 and spent the rest of the War of Independence in prison. He went on to lead a full life and is the father of Val Mulkerns, a celebrated writer and RTE commentator, and the late Jim Mulkerns, a noted Irish filmmaker. According to his granddaughter, Helena, the next time Jimmy Mulkerns saw George Brendan Nolan it was in the cinema, although now he wasn’t a 16-year-old kid running errands for Michael Collins. Now he was George Brent, a Hollywood star.

* Dermot McEvoy is the author of “The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising and Irish Miscellany” (Skyhorse Publishing). He may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him at www.dermotmcevoy.com. Follow The 13th Apostle on Facebook here.

* Originally published in 2016, updated in March 2026.