Saint Patrick

Patrick was born in Roman Britain, the son of a deacon and grandson of a priest. At about sixteen, as he tells in his own Confession, he was seized by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland as a slave, where he herded animals and prayed many times a day. After six years he heard in a dream that a ship was ready for him, walked about two hundred miles to the coast, and escaped. Back home with his family, he dreamed that the people of Ireland were calling him to come and walk among them again. After training as a cleric, he returned to Ireland as a bishop and spent the rest of his life there, baptizing thousands, ordaining clergy, and facing danger, imprisonment and criticism. His two surviving writings, the Confession and a Letter to the soldiers of the British ruler Coroticus, who had killed and enslaved newly baptized Christians, are the only certain sources for his life. Many later legends, such as driving out the snakes and using the shamrock to teach the Trinity, are not found in them.

Faith: Christian missionary, ordained a deacon at Auxerre, who spread the faith in Ireland. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) (via Wikisource)