Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland, probably Kilpatrick. As a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him. St. Patrick was born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, in 387 and died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland on March 17, 493. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britian in charge of the colonies. When he was sixteen, Patrick was kidnapped and sold in Ireland as a slave where he tended sheep. He learned the Irish language and customs before he escaped to the continent. There, he was ordained a deacon, a priest and finally a bishop.

During his captivity, he wrote:

"the love of God and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me."

He was then sent back to Ireland to preach the gospel of Christ. He won many converts and performed many miraches and this angered the Celtic Druids. Patrick was arrested often, but always escaped. He traveled Ireland extensively where he founded monasteries, set up churches and schools. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died on March 17, 461.