Every March 17th, people the world over don their best attire and celebrate what it means to be Irish in honour of St Patrick’s Day.  But who was St Patrick? And was he even Irish? The answer might surprise you.

In fact, the beloved apostle and patron saint of Ireland was not born on the Emerald Isle. But that’s about all we know for sure. In Patrick’s autobiography, he writes that he was born in a village called Bannavem Taberniae, but you won’t find that name on any map of Britain today.  Experts disagree about where exactly it was located. It may have been in England, Scotland or Wales.

What is clear is that Patrick was born an aristocrat, and his family had a large estate. They were Christian, but the young boy showed little interest in religion. Soon, all that would change. At the age of 16, Patrick was kidnapped by a group of Irish raiders, and would spend the next 6 years in captivity working as a sheep herder. Lonely and scared, Patrick turned to his family religion for solace and became a devout Christian.

As the story goes, one day he heard a voice which he believed to be God, telling him it was time to leave Ireland.  After walking for 200 miles to Ireland’s eastern coast, Patrick found passage on a ship. He sailed home to Britain and his family, but could not forget Ireland and the Irish people. In a dream, an angel told him to return to Ireland as a missionary.

After years of study, Patrick was ordained as a priest, and headed back to the island he had come to know as a prisoner. For the next 40 years, he would travel far and wide across Ireland, working to spread the Christian faith among the Celtic pagan population.

After Patrick’s death, on March 17, 461, his legend only spread. Thanks to a mixture of truth and myth passed down through the centuries, he became a super hero of the Christian Church and a symbol of Irish pride.