The late Myles na Gopaleen once remarked that Irish scholars had devoted much time and taxpayers' money "to proving that there was no God and three Saint Patricks". Some have maintained that there were two of them at least, but Liam de Paor more or less discounts this and concentrates on the historical Roman Briton whose Latin Confessio we can still read, as well as his so called Epistle to Coroticus.
Patrick, or Patricius, was probably born on the northern frontier of Roman Britain, near Carlisle, where his father, Calpurnius, was a kind of local magistrate and small landowner. At the age of 16 he was captured by Celtic raiders and brought to Ireland as a slave he eventually escaped home again, was ordained a priest and then a bishop, and returned to Ireland as an apostle of his faith. Probably his main task at first was not to convert the heathen Palladius had been there before him but to organise the existing Irish Christians and keep them in touch with Rome. The Western world was then in chaos, with the Roman frontier breached on the Rhine, barbarian hordes pouring into Europe, and Rome itself captured by the Goths so unity within the Church was of paramount importance. Much of this fascinating book is made up of ancient and mediaeval writings, translated by de Paor himself, which shed much light on Irish Christianity but also include, inevitably, a high percentage of myth and nonsense. There is a fascinating quotation from Cogitosus's Life of St Brigid the Virgin. "A certain woman who had taken the vow of chastity fell, through youthful desire of pleasure, and her womb swelled with child. Brigid, exercising the most potent strength of her ineffable faith, blessed her, causing the foetus to disappear, without coming to birth, and without pain." Irish debaters pro and contra abortion, please note.