PATRIZIO, saint. — Apostle of Ireland. He was born in Britannia to the deacon Calpurnius, who owned a small estate at Bannaven Taberniae, a locality that has not been identified. At the age of 16 he was taken as a slave to Ireland, where for six years he tended herds. He escaped twice and returned to his family; there, contrary to their advice, he clearly heard the voice calling him to the apostolate in Ireland. Before going there, he went to Gaul to Germano of Auxerre, who introduced him to ecclesiastical life and culture; he then visited some islands in the northern Tyrrhenian Sea, and finally landed in Ireland in 432.
Christianity had already been PALLIO (v.) sent by Pope Celestine, but for the most part the Island was pagan. P., ordained a bishop, devoted himself to an extraordinarily intensive apostolate, baptizing, visiting the whole country, and working especially in Ulster, Meath, and Connaught. He died in 461.
The most certain information about his life is drawn from two Latin writings of his, known collectively as the « Books of St. Patrick »: the Confessio, a kind of autobiography in which, against certain detractors, he recalls the path by which God led him to the apostolate of Ireland; and the Epistola ad Coroticum, addressed to the British king of Strathclyde, in which he deplores the violence committed by that king’s soldiers, during a raid on the Irish coasts, against the Christian communities of the Island. He is also credited with a Gaelic prayer called Faed Fiada, « Cry of the Fawn », also called Lorica, since it is like a protection which, through its powerful invocations, shields the Saint from the snares of his enemies. The feast of St. P. falls on 17 March; his cult had spread widely on the continent as early as the 8th century (cf. L. Gougaud, Les Saints Irlandais hors d'Irlande, Lovanio 1936, pp. 142-58).
Legend, naturally, knows much more: P. is said to have been born at Ail Claude (Dumbarton) and to have performed miracles from earliest childhood. At the age of 30 he received his vocation to the apostolate, then studied under Germano of Auxerre for another 30 years, and at the age of 60 began his mission in Ireland. He began by going to Tara, the seat of the high king of Ireland, Loegare, before whom, in competition with the druids, he performed great miracles, which nevertheless did not convert the king. He then went to Connaught, where he converted Loegare’s two daughters, and spent 40 days fasting on the mountain called Croagh-Patrick. From there he returned to Leinster and then proceeded to Munster, where at Cashel he baptized King Oengus. Finally he went up into Ulster, where he founded the primatial see of Armagh. He died at Saul on 17 March 493, at the age of 120. Since possession of his body was disputed, two yoked oxen, unguided, determined the place of his burial by stopping at Down Patrick.
IL PURGATORIO DI S. P. - The Patrician legend, regarded as one of the sources of Dante’s Inferno and dating from six hundred years after s. P., is due to the English monk Henry of Saltrey (ca. 1190). It relates that, when the Saint wished to dispel the disbelief of certain Irishmen concerning the punishments of the world beyond, the Lord showed him a cavern leading into the underworld: whoever remained there for a day and a night in faith would obtain forgiveness of sins and, persevering in goodness, eternal salvation. The cavern, walled up in 1497 by order of Alexander VI, lies on an island in Loug Derg (Lake of the Cavern) in Donegal (Ulster), and is the destination of an annual pilgrimage from 15 June to 15 August, whose ceremonies take place around the church of S. P., called Regles, and the four “beds of penance,” or circular enclosures named after s. Brigida, s. Brandano, s. Caterina, and s. Colomba. The stay on the Island lasts three days, during which penitential rites are performed (three times a day), including sevenfold circumambulation of the church of S. P. and prayer with outstretched arms (crossfigli).
BIBLI: J. B. Bury, The life of st. Patrick and his place in history, London 1905; for the legend, The tripartite life of Patrick, edited by W. Stokes, London 1887; E. Hogan, Docum. de s. Patricio Hibernorum apostolo ex libro Armacheno, in An. Boll., 1 (1882), pp. 231-85; 2 (1883), pp. 57-116; G. Dottin, Les livres de st Patrice, Paris n.d.; S. Czarnowski, Le culte des héros et ses conditions sociales: st Patrice héros national de l'Irlande, Paris 1914; Th. Concannon, St. Patrick, Dublin 1920. On the “Purgatorio di s. P.”: J. Krapp, The Legend of St. Patrick's Purgatory, its later literary history, Baltimore 1900; Ph. De Felice, Le purgatoire de st Patrice, Paris 1906; N. Turchi, La terra irlandese, in E. Buomiutti and N. Turchi, L'isola di smeraldo, Turin 1915, pp. 13-21; A. Curtayne, Loug Derg, St. Patrick's Purgatory, Dublin 1940; V. BERARDIER, DENIS, Italy and Ireland in the Middle Ages, there 1950, pp. 142-53. Nicola Turchi