St. Patrick: The Irish Legend

St. Patrick is probably one of the best known saints in the Western World, and certainly America's most revered one, his shamrocks and greenery covering New York and other great cities on his day. But even those devote Irish who proudly parade in or out of uniform, will learn something about the man who brought the Gospel to Ireland, in this splendid biopic which takes Patrick as a young Christian Scot who is captured and taken to Ireland as a slave, only to fall in love with these heathen people, and dedicate his whole life to save them from paganism.

The film is supported by a splendid cast, but its principal merit is the sensible, unobtrusive way in which it mixes the human, heroic story of the man, with the necessary miracles of the saint, and his duel of prodigies with the heathen druids is casually inserted in the more factual story of his labours, not without catering to the Irish by depicting a rapacious "British church" in perhaps the only departure from strict historical truth, since Patrick lived long before the English considered themselves such. Which doesn't prevent Malcolm McDowell from adding another splendid villain to his gallery, as the ambitious and autarchic Bishop Quentin.

OK, despite what I'm about to say, I enjoyed watching the film. Nothing, however, is perfect, and this piece suffered from as much ignorance as I have seen in any attempt to recreate the early Middle Ages. I was a monk for many years, so maybe I know more about such things than I should. Still, it looked as if the producers were trying without knowing how to try.

For instance, when Patrick, upon his return from slavery, asked his father for "a Bible", he was asking the impossible. There was no such thing available. The most he could have gotten would have been a bound book of the 150 Psalms, or maybe--since his father was, as depicted, a patrician landowner--a book containing the four Gospels. The story omitted any mention of the fact that Patrick's father was, himself, a deacon in the Church.

Further, there was no "arduous course of studies" for the priesthood, and people didn't have to travel to Gaul for training and ordination, though some, indeed, did. Training and ordination normally would have been undertaken by the local bishop.

Then, when Patrick said to Bp Quentin, "In Matthew, the 16th chapter, verses 19 and 20...", that, too, was impossible. The Bible wasn't divided into chapters and verses until the 17th century, by Archbishop Ussher. What Patrick *should* have said would be more like "Remember the words of Our Lord which we read in the Gospel for the 2nd Sunday in Lent..." Oh, and the grammar of the quoted Biblical passages--pronouns and verbs all mixed up? Homer Simpson does just about as well. (It's not hard to look something up and copy it out right.)

By the way, Patrick was far from ignorant of Latin, as portrayed in the scene with Bp Quentin. He wrote Latin poetry, and his autobiography (as partly read in a later scene) was written in fairly decent Latin.

Now--the vestments. It looked as if the producers had raided all of the costume shops in Lower Manhattan, and a few of the church sacristies, and tossed together whatever looked good to them--none of it the least bit authentic.

Bishop Quentin's getup was the worst--a modern Byzantine chasuble and a 15th-century Venetian Doge's cap. The copes worn by the other bishops and Patrick were of 18th-century design, which persisted down to fairly recently, when the flaps on the back began to be restored as proper hoods--and these were topped off in the film with 16th-century Canterbury caps! The white surplices worn by the messengers and acolytes and the white albs worn by the slaughtered flock of newly-baptized came right off the shelf of Guardian Church Goods on 7th Street. Pfui.

As I said, enjoyable enough, but it could have been way better if the producers had simply asked me!

I want to begin with agreeing and applauding placid-3's review. The historical inaccuracies, in my opinion, undermine the story's convictions. Reading a King James bible before it's creation, coupled with all the other miracles, would be less believable then Patrick obtaining a set of magical scrolls containing gold-glowing scripts of the gospels.

The next very bothersome inaccuracy is the blatant antagonizing view of the Druids at the time. In the beginning scenes during the Samhain festival the High Priest is heard praying to the "powers of darkness" as though he were praying to the Devil.

In truth, the "Gods of Darkness" are not evil aspects of their pantheon, but instead simply the deity of Autumn and Winter as a personification mirroring these seasons. The Druids were praying to a God closely related in aspect to Santa Claus, whom, before being indoctrinated into the Church as Saint Nicholas, was in fact, the Germanic/Pagan icon known as the Holly King.

Other issues were the depictions of animal sacrifice as somehow immoral. When, even in the Bible, Abel sacrifices his favored flock in praise of God. Animal offerings were common before Christ, and though lacking the "ceremony", existed even after Him.

Next is Human sacrifice depicted as frequently occurring, when this is confused with symbolic sacrifice. Had you known nothing of Catholicism, hearing of rituals where the flesh and blood of a man were imbibed, you would believe this to be atrocious cannibalism. In reality priests underwent a symbolic death personifying the daylight sun's departure. Bones discovered at holy sites were confused with human sacrifice simply by placement; the same could be concluded with this reasoning on bones in church yards.

Slavery now is an immense moral taboo, but back in that time was incredibly common and not as evil as the 19th century America's. Patrick being of Roman patronage would have had quite a few slaves, though they would be more conscript/peon then what we have come to consider slaves today. In reality, slaves of the time were any of the lower class that were indentured to a land owner and was provided protection, shelter, and food for labor. Without this in the harshness of the time period a person would surely perish; this should not be confused with the inhumane treatment and subjugation of slaves in later centuries.

As a fantasy or legend, the story is good, but just as the church is vilified so too are the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland; just as a minority of Christians were bad and the majority, like Patrick, were good, the Druids should have been given the same treatment. It is debatable that Patrick's actions caused the civilization of Ireland to lose it's strength against invaders and subsequently open the door to centuries of new oppression, war and misery at the hands of outsiders.

As for all the magical delights, and scenery this movie is awesome. I'm always happy to see the fantasy genre grow and enthralled by it's connection to the Emerald Isles.

The historical truths of Patrick have been embellished like any Legend, but in turn the antagonists have as been exaggerated as well. It would have been nice to have seen two sides of the coin in regards to the Druids, and possibly less emphasis on them being barbarous and evil. They invented the first four walled room you know.

A young boy is kidnapped and forced into slavery, guarding sheep in Ireland. With his faith in God, he returns home only to decide to study to become a priest and introduce Christianity to the poor and enslaved people of Ireland. His deeds led him to becoming the second Bishop of Ireland. Very informative look at this fifth century personage. His reported use of the shamrock as an illustration of the Holy Trinity led to its being regarded as the Irish national symbol.

A very talented cast featuring Patrick Bergin as the adult Patrick and Luke Griffin as the young Patrick. Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates and Susannah York seemed flawless.

This is a decent telling of the life of Patrick from teen, to Irish slave, to Bishop of Ireland, to Patron Saint of the Irish. It gives a lot of information and background on the legend of the man who becomes the saint. It's starts off pretty good, but turns a little too unbelievable towards the end when he starts using magical powers. At one point, he chokes a man like Darth Vader using the force. It's just a little too over the top. The cinematography of the Irish countryside is beautiful.

**1/2 (Out of 4)