Everything you know about St Patrick is wrong: here’s the true story of our patron saint

Patrick was nothing like the elderly bishop of yore cloaked in green

Stained-glass window of the big fellah, from St Patrick's Church in Junction City, Ohio

Alannah Hopkin

The people of Ireland tend to assume they know everything there is to know about St Patrick, as it was drummed into them at school.

The official story told is St Patrick was kidnapped as a child and brought to Ireland to work as a herdsman on Mount Slemish, Co Antrim.