Above: Street map of Armagh (click map to enlarge)

St. Patrick is said to have founded the Sea of Armagh in the year 453. Daire, a chieftain of Ulster, gave him the site for the church, and it was to Armagh that, when the Saint felt his end approaching, he went to die. He set out from Saul towards Armagh, and tradition has it that he was commanded by an angel to return to Saul. He died and was buried at Downpatrick about the year 493.

Judged by what he accomplished, St. Patrick must be ranked amongst the greatest of the missionaries who spread the Christian Faith beyond the limits of the Roman Empire. He organized the Christianity which existed in Ireland before the date of his arrival, converted kingdoms which were still pagan, and made Ireland a part of universal Christendom. He had a strong personality, great powers of initiative, a splendid enthusiasm for his great mission, and he showed himself wise and politic by the manner in which be dealt with the kings and chieftains, effecting a great revolution in the life and habits of the people with little bitterness and no sacrifice of human life. While he did not introduce Christianity into Ireland, he secured the permanence of the faith in the country, and made it a living force which could never be extinguished.

Above: Book cover with an image of St. Patrick’s statue

Like the great Apostle of the Gentiles he refused to take any personal credit for the success of his efforts, and attributed the results he had attained to the purpose of the Creator, and the working of Divine Grace. ” I protest in truth,” he writes, ” and can rejoice in the thought before God and His holy angels, that I never had any motive save the Gospel and its promises, for ever returning to that people from among whom I had escaped. And I beg all that believe in God and seek and fear Ilim, whoever of them may be pleased to examine or read this letter, which I, Patrick—poor sinful and ignorant creature as I am—have written in Ireland, that no one will ever say that my ignorance is to have the credit of it, if I have effected or performed any little matter according to the purpose of God; but believe and be assured for certain that it was God Who has done it. And this is my confession before I die.”