The National Holiday is March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, named after the Patron Saint of Ireland. St. Patrick was a Romanised Celt called Patricius, and the traditional dates for his mission to Ireland have been given as 431 AD to 461AD. March 17 was the date of his death.

He was the son of a Deacon and grandson of a priest who was kidnapped at the age of sixteen by an Irish raiding party near his home and brought to Ireland. After several years as a herdsman, he escaped back to Continental Europe, where he studied for the priesthood.

Tradition holds that one night he dreamed that a voice called to him to return to Ireland and "walk once more amongst us". The compassionate and determined way in which he answered that mystical request has caused him to be known and loved ever since as Naomh Padraig (pronounced: "Nayov Pawdrig") or in english, Saint Patrick, patron of Ireland. Much of his life story is known from one of the few documents written by Patrick himself, his Confessio.


To him his work was principally a spiritual task. Although there were some scattered Christian communities in Ireland before his arrival, the impetus for the general change to Christianity throughout the land was due to him personally and to his work.

There are two particularly well known traditions associated with Saint Patrick. The first is the belief that he banished the snakes from Ireland. This seems not to have originated until the 11th century and there are indications that this idea was suggested by the many accounts of how the saint banished the "demons of paganism" from Ireland. The second is the association of the shamrock with him. We are told that Patrick used the symbol of the trefoil stem of the shamrock to explain the Christian mystery of the Holy Trinity to the people, explaining that just as three leaves can spring from one stem so also are there three persons in one God. The current practice of wearing shamrock on Saint Patrick’s Day is hardly more than a few centuries old.