St. Patrick of the Political Propaganda Pt. 1

The Patrick of legend is a wholly propagandised fabrication, shaped significantly by the social, political, and cultural circumstances of the successive generations that have laid claim to him.

The St. Patrick of popular imagination

is a complex and often contradictory figure with a central role in both shaping, and being shaped by, Irish cultural and political identity for over 1500 years. While it is generally accepted that a historical Romano-British figure named Patrick did exist and did travel to Ireland in the 5^th century ­ – and indeed some of the oldest extant writings of early Christian Ireland are attributed to him¹ – it is the mythological Patrick, with fantastical tales of snakes, shamrocks, druids, and supernatural deeds, that is best known and most celebrated today.
But this version of Ireland’s patron saint is a religious and political conceit - a propagandised fabrication shaped significantly by the social, political, and cultural circumstances of the successive generations that have laid claim to him.  From the early Christian hagiographers of the 7^th century, to the Anglo-Norman colonisers of the 12^th century, from the quasi-monarchical Viceroy of the 19^th century, to the anti-communist politicians of the 21^st century, the figure of saint Patrick and his associated traditions has been embellished and appropriated variously to consolidate dynastic power, legitimise colonial occupation, diffuse proletarian organising, and engender nationalist ideals, depending on the political motivations and dynastic desires of the group invoking him.

In the spiritual realm Patrick has emerged as a paternal protector and saviour of souls, but in our temporal reality his myth functions primarily as a vessel for contemporary cultural propaganda.

Patrick, Propaganda, Primacy

The 5^th century in Ireland was an era of radical social and religious change. On the doorstep of a collapsing Roman Empire, with factious native dynasties regularly clashing for power, and a nascent Christianity taking root, it was a time of great cultural upheaval and political flux. It is within this social melee that the historical figure of Patrick existed, arriving in Ireland first as an enslaved captive, and later as a religious missionary, sometime mid- 5^th century². Apart from his own ‘Confessio’, in which he describes himself as humble and “a sinner, a simple country person”, there are very few contemporaneous documents detailing Patrick’s mission or his growth in status during the following years of burgeoning Christianity. But we do know by the 7^th century a dedicated cult of worship had formed and was growing in social, religious, and political power, primarily in the northern territories of the island.
 
It is in this era that the first hagiographical texts dedicated to Patrick appear. Like Christianity itself, hagiographical writing of saints’ lives was an import to Ireland that was embraced and deeply influenced by native tradition.³ From the outset, it was recognised that hagiographical compositions could be geared towards political propaganda rather than moral example⁴, and scribes who blended this imported compositional style with the Irish narrative tradition utilised topographical, genealogical, and onomastic elements to firmly ground their subjects within the dynastic and political landscapes of the time. The two main hagiographies dedicated to Patrick during this time were written by Muirchú and Tírechán, and both Muirchú's Vita sancti Patricii and Tírechán’s Collectanea undertook a deeply politicised reshaping of the saint’s life to deliberately bolster the claims of the church of Armagh, who named Patrick as their founder and were vying for ecclesiastical and social dominance among neighbouring dynasties. Featured amongst freshly conjured miracles and prophetic myths are the more temporal concerns of jurisdictional power, property claims, dynastic inheritance, taxes and dues, and political allegiances. Through hagiography, Patrick was transformed from a humble and simple sinner to a powerful, prophetic - and most importantly political - force. With a narrative based in political astuteness rather than any historical accuracy, Tírechán’s Patrick meets and converts the ancestral forefathers of the current ruling dynasties. These fabricated ancestral bonds benefited both church and dynasty – the former gaining the support and protection of contemporary rulers, the latter accessing prestige and material gain through association with a powerful religious entity⁵.  Alongside the deliberate policy of synchronism employed to flatter powerful elites⁶, a demonstrable authority over the less powerful was also an aim of the religious propaganda. Muirchú’s writing seeks out and draws in smaller churches claimed to belong within the Armagh federation through supposed association with Patrick. These associations were made to broaden Armagh’s cultural and religious remit, strengthen their property base, and ultimately create revenue as each lower church was requested to pay an ecclesiastical tax.

Muirchú and Tírechán aggrandised Armagh and Patrick for political purposes, and deliberately downplayed the power of rival churches (such as DownPatrick and Saul) for the same end. They worked to ensure that the cult was elevated to that of ‘national’ status, with Armagh’s attendant status rising accordingly. These deliberate political re-workings of Patrick’s legacy were at the forefront of a push for Armagh to emerge as the most important and powerful church in Ireland by the end of the seventh century. In their hagiographies, we can trace the beginning of the transformation of Patrick from a historically situated human to a propagandised and politicised mythologised construct.

Early Medieval Expansion

The cult of Patrick grew apace during the Early Medieval period, and with that the status of Armagh as a religious and political center strengthened. The 8^th century saw the northern Uí Neill king of Tara, Áed Allán, proclaim that Lex Patricii – The Law of Patrick - was to be upheld throughout Ireland. By the 9^th century, Armagh was making more substantial and specific claims to jurisdiction and tribute throughout Ireland than any other church had done before⁷. Despite Viking incursions that targeted and curbed the power of many wealthy monasteries, the 10^th century saw Armagh continue to grow in cultural importance, with influence extending deep into previously resistant Munster territory, the first record of a Patrician maer for Munster, and the levying of tribute fees to the Patrician Federation⁸. In the 11^th century the secular and dynastic importance of Armagh was highlighted with a visit by Brian Bórumna in which he consolidated power with the Patrician community and sought validation of the high status he felt due to him since gaining the submission of the King of Tara three years previous⁹.
During this period, hagiographers continued to create and expand fabricated elements of the life of Saint Patrick, forming and reviewing dynastic and ecclesiastic connections in response to the varying and competing political movements of the time.

Conquest, Cults, and the Anglo-Norman Ascendency

Some of the most iconic and enduring representations of Patrician mythos were created in the political tumult of Late Middle Age in Ireland. Medieval Patrick was a powerful protector and vengeful crusader, banishing demons, drowning non-believers, and expelling the venomous slithering snakes that would eventually become synonymous with him. This expulsion myth entered the cultural lexicon in the 12^th century, first appearing in Jocelyn of Furness’ Vita sancti Patricii - a hagiography commissioned by Anglo-Norman coloniser John De Courcy, in conjunction with Archbishop Tomaltach of Armagh, and Bishop Malachy III of Down.  John De Courcy, an Anglo-Norman knight connected to Cumbria in northern England, arrived in Ireland as a mercenary sometime in the 1170s¹⁰. The Normans, under the leadership of Strongbow (Richard De Clare) had been present and fighting in Ireland since 1169, and were spreading across the island by the 70’s. Originally invited by deposed King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, to help regain his kingship, it was Strongbow who inherited and held power in Leinster by 1171, after the death of Mac Murchada. This initial military incursion and dynastic takeover was then followed by the arrival of the larger force of English King Henry II, who travelled to Ireland in 1171 to establish dominion over the newly conquered Norman territory, and to force the submission of the Irish provincial kings and clerics. Backed by Pope Alexander, who saw an opportunity to reform and establish papal authority over the Irish Church¹¹, and ‘justified’ by the declaration of previous Pope Adrian IV which “gave Ireland as a hereditary possession to the illustrious king of the English, Henry II" ¹², this Anglo-Norman mission heralded another an era of immense political, social, and cultural upheaval, as church-backed English crusading and colonialism took root across the island.

In 1177, John de Courcy travelled north on a military crusade from Norman-held Leinster to DownPatrick, conquering the powerful Dál Fiatach kingship of Ulaid and most of its adjoining territory over the following few years. The conquest of the over-Kingdom of Ulaid and the expulsion of its former rulers brought an end to an ancient dynasty whose reign had stretched back into mythologised pre-history. De Courcy was not as high status or well-connected as Strongbow and other Anglo-Norman conquerors, and so did not have as many resources at his disposal for the settlement of newly taken Ulaid. He offset this lack of material power by instead developing a policy of active cooperation with a number of Irish churchmen, and utilising monastic foundations as willing colonising partners¹³. The church in Ireland at the time was at a critical stage of evolution, rife with power struggles and high tensions often spilling over into violence between reformed and unreformed clergy. De Courcy exploited these tensions and formed alliances by offering power and protection to reformist churchmen (such as his co-patrons Malachy III and Tomaltach) in exchange for support and legitimacy in the advancement of papal-approved English colonialism in Ireland¹⁴. He also recognised the material power that the cult of St. Patrick and other Irish saints held in both religious and secular society, and worked to incorporate that power into his own legacy. In 1185 he staged the "discovery" of the corporeal relics of Patrick (as well as of saints Brigit and Colum Cille) in a bid to appropriate the strength of the cult. To be in possession of holy corporeal relics was a major expression of ecclesiastical supremacy – to be in possession of the relics of Ireland’s three major saints would have been seen as a major power move to legitimise De Courcy’s supremacy over the ecclesiastical centers associated with each saint.

It is within this cultural context of church-backed conquest and ecclesiastical propaganda that John De Courcy commissioned the Vita sancti Patricii hagiography from Jocelyn of Furness. Jocelyn was an English cleric based in the Cistercian house of Furness in Lancashire, who travelled to Downpatrick at the request of De Courcy to create the hagiography. As with previous hagiographies, this Vita was political propaganda to its core, with each myth and miracle shaped to fit a contemporary narrative of righteous conquest and religious power.  In his foreword, Jocelyn decries the ‘rude manner and barbarous dialect’ of the ‘foolish and ignorant’ native hagiographers, and endeavours to improve it. He aims to ‘clear away the superfluous’ and ‘season’ Patrick’s life with the ‘excellence’ and ‘elegance’ of his own language. Jocelyn then names any detractors or objectors to himself, John De Courcy, or his patronage as ‘snakes’, ‘serpents’, and ‘vipers’ who should be cast into fire. In the main text itself, Jocelyn’s Patrick is a violent missionary, arriving from England to save the souls of those who will allow it, and destroying those who won’t. He is a superhuman wonderworker whose chief characteristic is the power he commands, and whose miracles are inclined to be miracles of malevolence¹⁵. He is a crusading saint, spreading his true faith through violence and expulsion.  Those who organise against him or oppose him are slain, drowned, and defeated. Obstinate detractors are ‘destroyed from the face of the earth’. A fitting patron, no doubt, for a conquering force to promote.

Slanderous Snakes & Colonial Resistance

It is Jocelyn and de Courcy’s imported colonial version of Patrick that first encounters and expels the venomous snakes of Ireland. The snakes appear as part of a ‘threefold plague’, alongside ‘a concourse of demons’ and ‘a multitude of evil-doers and magicians’.  The narrative tool of the triad - in which three elements with shared properties are grouped together for heightened affect - is clearly employed here, and so the snakes’ inclusion alongside other supernatural and nefarious beings suggests they inhabit a similar metaphysical space to their plague cohorts. They represent more than mere temporal creatures, and the story of their expulsion has a role that goes beyond the aetiological. Jocelyn’s earlier foreword used snakes-as-metaphor to symbolise the treacherous ideologies of any who might ‘scorn’, ‘slander’, or ‘attack’ his patron John De Courcy or himself. If we consider the contemporary political and cultural climate at the time, those critics of De Courcy (and by extension Jocelyn) were likely independent Gaelic kingdoms resisting Anglo-Norman expansion and colonialism, non-reformed clerics resisting the papal pressure brought by De Courcy’s reformist allegiances, ecclesiastical centers having their power and status threatened by De Courcy’s push for supremacy, and any of the dynasties that had been forced to submit in his newly conquered realm. All would have motivation to scorn, slander, or attack, and all would be seen as snakes in the eyes of the English colonist and cleric.

Details in hagiographies often perform as ciphers - coded narratives ostensibly based in the spiritual past yet firmly rooted in the author’s temporal present, which have various geographical considerations that are rarely unconsidered otrandom¹⁶. The coded topography of the myth can be mapped onto the contemporary political reality of the time. It seems no coincidence that the newly created ‘snakes’ of Jocelyn’s myth were being expelled from Cruachán Aigle - in the heart of Connacht - when we know that the king of Connacht, Conchobar Máenmaige Ua Conchobair, was a fierce opponent to English rule and colonial expansion at the time. He regularly attacked and raided English castles, looting and slaughtering the planted communities. Close to the time that Jocelyn was writing the Vita, John de Courcy himself had been engaged in direct battle with Ua Conchobair and had suffered heavy losses after a failed invasion of Connacht. There is little doubt that De Courcy would have viewed the resistance of Ua Conchobair, and the kingdom of Connacht as a whole, as a major issue to English expansionism. The anti-English inhabitants of that land would surely have fit Jocelyn’s description of ‘snakes’ and ‘serpents’, ever keen to ‘attack [their] hand with viper tooth’. Through the loaded metaphor of treacherous snakes miraculously driven out by a righteous crusader, De Courcy seems likely to have been envisioning the destruction and expulsion of the forces that opposed him. He employed a veneer of religiosity to create a violent mythologised past in order to legitimise a violent political present¹⁷. For the expulsion to take place within the ritual landscape of Cruachán Aigle adds another dimension of symbolic legitimacy¹⁸. Cleansing a swarmed land accursed with native plagues of serpents, demons, evil-doers, and magicians for ‘the greater good’ was a deeply political piece of propaganda.
Colonial fantasies of Ireland’s mythical and treacherous inhabitants were immensely popular in literature at the time¹⁹, and such propaganda would have appealed greatly to the predominantly Anglo-Norman readership involved in and seeking to legitimise their ‘civilising’ conquests.

References

1 – Roman Bleier. “Re-Examining the Function of St Patrick’s Writings in the Early Medieval Tradition.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature 116C (2016): 95–117. https://doi.org/10.3318/priac.2016.116.07

2 – Shanahan, Jerry “Ireland A Social History - From the celts to the foundation of unionism and republicanism”

3, 4, 5, 6 – McCone, Kim. “An Introduction to Early Irish Saints’ Lives.” The Maynooth Review / Revieú Mhá Nuad 11 (1984): 26–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20556983

7 - Hughes, Kathleen, and John Bannerman. “The Church and the World in Early Christian Ireland.” Irish Historical Studies 13, no. 50 (1962): 99–116. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30005102

8, 9 - MacShamhráin, Ailbhe. “Brian Bóruma, Armagh and High Kingship.” Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society 20, no. 2 (2005): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/29742749

10 - ‘The first Ulster plantation: John de Courcy and the men of Cumbria’ in T. Barry, R.F. Frame and Katharine Simms (eds), Colony and frontier in medieval Ireland: essays presented to J.F. Lydon (London, 1995)

11 - Bull, Marcus (2007). "Criticism of Henry II's Expedition to Ireland in William of Canterbury's Miracles of St Thomas Becket". Journal of Medieval History(2): 107–129

12 - Robinson, I. S. (2004). "The Papacy, 1122–1198". In Luscombe, D.; Riley-Smith, J. (eds.). The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. 4: 1024–1198, II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 317–383

13, 14 – Flanagan, Marie Therese “John de Courcy, The First Ulster Plantation and Irish Church Men”

15 - Corish, Patrick J. “St. Patrick and Ireland.” Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society 4, no. 2 (1961): 120–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/29744780.

16 – McCone, Kim. “An Introduction to Early Irish Saints’ Lives.” The Maynooth Review / Revieú Mhá Nuad 11 (1984): 26–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20556983

17 - This prophecy comes to fruition in 1189, when Ua Conchobair is assassinated by an associate of De Courcy in revenge for the defeat in Connacht.

18 – Mulhaire, Ronan Joseph “Kingship, lordship, and resistance: a study of power in eleventh- and twelfth-century Ireland”

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