PATRICK, SAINT

flourished 5th century, , Britain and Ireland; feast day March 17 patron saint and national apostle of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Epistola, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians. Additional reading For particulars as to the extant manuscript sources, see the definitive edition by L. Bieler of the Confessio and Epistola in Libri Epistolarum Sancti Patricii Episcopi, 2 vol. (1952), and for an English translation of the writings, Bieler's Works of St. Patrick (1953). Bibliographical references are covered exhaustively up to 1929 in J.K. Kenney (ed.), Sources for the Early History of Ireland, vol. 1 (1929); studies published from then until 1962 are amply treated in D.A. Binchy, Saint Patrick and His Biographers, Ancient and Modern, Studia Hibernica, 2:7173 (1962), an incomparable critical analysis of the Patrician problem. Other useful works include: L. Bieler, St. Patrick and the Coming of Christianity (1967); R.P.C. Hanson, Saint Patrick: His Origins and Career (1968); and T. O'Raifeartaigh, Saint Patrick's Twenty-Eight Days Journey, Irish Historical Studies, vol. 16, no. 64 (1969).