Chapter 1 #

¹ Every day, he “sang all the psalms, hymns, and the Apocalypse of John,”* along with the spiritual songs of the Scriptures, whether at home or on a journey. Moreover, he would mark himself with the sign of the cross a hundred times every hour, both day and night. Whenever he saw a cross, he would dismount from his chariot and turn aside to pray there.

² * Catholica note: Muirchú quotes from Praise of St. Patrick by St. Secundius (372-457AD).

Chapter 2 #

¹ While journeying one day, Patrick passed by a cross situated near the roadside without noticing it. However, his driver saw it. When they reached a certain inn, which was their destination, and had begun prayers before dinner, the driver said, “I saw a cross situated by the side of the road we came along.”

² Upon hearing this, Patrick left the inn and went back along the road to the cross, where he prayed. There he discovered a sepulchre and a dead man buried in that tomb. Patrick asked the dead man by what death he had died and in what faith he had lived. The dead man replied, “I was a heathen in my life, and I was buried here.”

³ There was a certain woman living in another province whose son had been long separated from her. He died and was buried far from her. After some days, the grieving mother, mourning her lost son, mistakenly believed the sepulchre of the heathen man to be her son’s tomb. In her sorrow, she erected the cross beside the heathen man’s grave.

⁴ Patrick explained that the reason he had not seen the cross was because it marked a heathen burial place. From this, a greater miracle occurred: a dead man spoke, the one who had died in the faith of Christ was revealed, and the merit of the fostering cross was restored when the sign—the cross—was placed on its rightful site.

Chapter 3 #

¹ Now, it was Patrick’s custom not to go out from the evening of the Lord’s Day at night—that is, Saturday evening—until the morning of the second day of the week. On a certain Lord’s Day, while spending the night in the open country out of respect for the holy season, heavy rain fell accompanied by a violent wind. Yet, although the entire surrounding region was devastated by the torrential rain, the spot where the holy bishop was spending the night remained as dry as Gideon’s fleece.

² The driver then approached and recounted how the horses had been lost, lamenting them as though they were his closest friends. He explained that he could not search for them because the darkness made it impossible to see. Moved by compassion, Patrick, the kind and fatherly man, said to the weeping driver, “God, who is a ready helper in distress, in times of trouble, will grant His aid, and you will find the horses for which you grieve.” Then, stretching his bare hand out from his sleeve, he raised it high, and his five fingers, like radiant lights, illuminated the surrounding countryside. By the light of Patrick’s outstretched hand, the driver was able to locate the lost horses, bringing an end to his sorrow. However, this miracle was not revealed by the driver, Patrick’s companion, until after Patrick’s death.

Chapter 4 #

¹ But after such miracles, which have been recorded elsewhere and are celebrated by the faithful throughout the world, as the day of his death approached, an angel appeared to Patrick and spoke to him about his departure from this life. In response, he sent a message to Ardd-Machae, the place he loved more than all others. He then instructed that many men should come to him to take him to the place where he desired to go.

Chapter 5 #

¹ Then, of his own accord, Patrick set out with his companions for Machi, the land he greatly desired. Along the way, a certain bush burned with fire yet was not consumed, just as had once happened to Moses in the bush. Victor, the angel who often visited Patrick, sent another angel to prevent him from going where he wished. The angel said to him, “Why do you set out without the counsel of Victor? Therefore, Victor calls you; turn aside to him.” Patrick obeyed and turned aside as instructed, asking what he should do. The angel replied, “Return to the place from which you came, that is, to Sabul; for the four petitions you desired have been granted to you.”

Chapter 6 #

¹ The first petition: that your jurisdiction will be in Ardd-Machae.

² The second petition: that whoever, on the day of their death, sings the hymn composed about you, you will be the judge of their repentance for their sins.

³ The third petition: that the descendants of Dichu, who received you kindly, will receive mercy and not perish.

⁴ The fourth petition: that all the Irish will be judged by you on the Day of Judgment, as it was said to the Apostles, “And you will sit and judge the twelve tribes of Israel”, so that you may be the judge of those to whom you were an apostle.

Chapter 7 #

¹ Return, therefore, as I command you; and when you die, you will go the way of your fathers. (This occurred on the 17th day of March, when the full span of his 120 years had been completed, as it is celebrated throughout all parts of Ireland.)

Chapter 8 #

¹ And you will set a boundary against the night. For on the day of his death, there was no night, and in the province where his funeral was conducted, for twelve days, “night did not come down and wrap the earth with dusky wings,” and “the gloom of the night was not so great, and Hesperus did not bring on the shadows that reveal the stars.” The people of Ulaid remarked that until the very end of the year in which he died, the nights were never as dark as they had been before. This, without doubt, occurred to manifest the greatness of so worthy a man.

² Now, if anyone would faithlessly doubt that a boundary was set against the night, so that night was not seen throughout the entire province during the brief period of mourning for Patrick, let him hear and carefully take note of how Hezekiah was shown a sign of recovery on the dial of Ahaz when he was sick.

Chapter 9 #

¹ Now, as the hour of his death approached, Patrick received the Sacrifice from Bishop Tassach as the viaticum of a blessed life, just as Victor the angel had foretold to him.

Chapter 10 #

¹ On the first night of his funeral, the angels kept vigil over the holy body in the customary manner with psalms and prayers, while all those who had gathered to keep watch on that first night slept. On the following nights, men guarded the body, praying and singing psalms. After the angels ascended into heaven, they left behind a most sweet fragrance, like the scent of honey and the rich aroma of wine, so that it might be fulfilled as spoken in the blessing of the patriarch Jacob: “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed.”

Chapter 11 #

¹ Now when the angel came to him, he gave him counsel regarding his burial: “Choose two unbroken oxen, and let them go wherever they will, and in the place where they lie down, let a church be built to honor your humble body.”

² As the angel instructed, untamed bullocks were chosen. They pulled a wagon with a securely fixed litter carrying the holy body, yoked to their shoulders. Oxen from the herds of Conail, from the place called Clocher, to the east of Findubair, were honored by being selected for this sacred task. They set out, guided by the will of God, to Dun-Lethglaisse, where Patrick was laid to rest.

Chapter 12 #

¹ And he said to him, “Let no relics of your body be removed from the ground, and let a cubit’s depth of earth cover your body.” This was confirmed in later times as being by God’s command. For when a church was constructed over his body, those who were digging the ground saw fire bursting forth from his tomb and fled in fear from the flame-bearing fire.

Chapter 13 #

¹ At the time of his death, a fierce dispute, almost escalating to war, arose over the relics of St. Patrick between the Uí Néill and the men of Airthir on one side, and the men of Ulaid on the other—former neighbors and kin now turned bitter enemies. The contention, fueled by their wrath, occurred at the channel called the Hill of the Ox.

² By Patrick’s merits and God’s mercy, to prevent the shedding of blood, the sea swelled with towering, curling waves; the crests of the waters seemed to split the heavens above. The ridges, trembling atop the waves, surged into motion as if to join the conflict—sometimes with quaking roars, sometimes revealing tawny hollows—seeming to rebuke the enmity of these warring peoples, for such were the nations. The wild turbulence of the lough rose up and forbade them to fight.

Chapter 14 #

¹ After Patrick had been buried and the swelling of the lough had subsided, the men of Airthir rose again, and the Uí Néill charged fiercely into battle against the men of Ulaid. Fully prepared and armed for war, they surged forward to the place where the blessed body lay.

² However, they were deceived by a fortunate delusion. Believing they had found the two oxen and the wagon, they assumed they were carrying off the holy body. With the body, as they thought, and their armed force, they advanced as far as the river Cabcenne. Yet at that point, they discovered the body was not with them.

³ It was impossible for there to be peace concerning a body so revered and blessed unless, by the will of God, a vision was revealed at the proper time. Unless that which had been the salvation of countless souls should become the cause of destruction and death, the body was displayed through a fortunate delusion. Just as, in times past, the Syrians, blinded so they could not harm the holy prophet Elisha, were led by Divine providence through Elisha to Samaria, so too this delusion was arranged to bring peace among the peoples.

Chapter 15 #

¹ To return to the subject of prayer: the angel would come to him every seventh day of the week, and, as one person speaks with another, so Patrick conversed with the angel.

² Furthermore, in the sixteenth year of his age, he was taken captive and endured six years of slavery. Throughout thirty changes of service, the angel continued to visit him, granting him counsel and conversation of a heavenly nature.

³ Before he departed from Scotia to the Latins, he prayed one hundred times during the day and one hundred times during the night.

⁴ One time, while tending his swine, he lost them; and the angel came to him and showed him where the swine were. On another occasion, after the angel had spoken many things to him, he concluded his words, placed one foot upon a rock in Scirit and the other on Mount Mis, and ascended to heaven in Patrick’s sight. The angel’s footprints are said to remain visible on the rock to this day. In that place, the angel spoke with him thirty times. It is a place of prayer, where the prayers of the faithful yield the most blessed fruit.