Patrick: Saint of Ireland

Details of the life of the man who became Ireland’s patron saint remain elusive: those which we have are a hazy mixture of his own autobiographical writing and a vast accretion of legendary material. Using these varied sources, Denham outlines the key moments of Patrick’s career, culminating in his conversion of Ireland from its native paganism to Christianity. Her emphasis is very much on the spiritual (and occasionally mystical) side of his story and though it may be true that ‘thousands of Christians still worship in the churches that Patrick established’, a sense does not overall emerge of a saint for our time. Mayo’s full-colour illustrations are attractively evocative of the semi-realistic, semi-mythical world of the text.