St. Patrick’s Contest of Miracles (Irish Myths StoryTime Ep. 7)

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Irish Myths StoryTime podcast.

Today’s story is St. Patrick’s Easter Sunday contest of miracles with the druid at Tara.

Or, as the Leinster-born monk and historian Muirchú moccu Machtheni styled this particular chapter of his hagiography Life of Saint Patrick (Vita sancti Patricii), “Patrick’s conflict with the druid on that day, and of his miraculous deeds.”

Or as I’m styling it for brevity’s sake: The Contest of Miracles.

Now, the reason I chose this story is because I’ve gotten multiple comments on some of my St. Patrick YouTube videos claiming that Ireland’s preeminent Patron Saint conquered the Emerald Isle with the help of a Roman-British army and that’s how he spread Christianity: by force.

And while I couldn’t find any textual or archaeological evidence supporting this claim, I did find some examples of St. Patrick perpetrating acts of violence against Irish pagans—druids in particular—in medieval hagiographies.

Originally, I was keen to highlight the Irish bishop Tírechán’s accounts of Patrick battling druids. 

Like when Patrick “raised his left hand to God in heaven and cursed [a] (chief) druid, and he dropped dead in the midst of his druids, and he was consumed by fire.”

And then there’s Tírechán’s own reckoning of the Contest of Miracles tale, which sees a druid, courtesy of Patrick, being “lifted up through the darkness of night almost to the sky, and when he came down again, his body, frozen with hailstones and snow mixed with sparks of fire, fell to the ground in the sight of all.”

Despite these fantastic details, I ultimately found Muirchú’s version to be more thorough and narratively driven. While’s Tírechán’s account is essentially a vignette, Muirchú’s is a full-blown story.

But be clear, neither iteration of the Contest of Miracles can be considered historical. 

For starters, both were penned (quilled?) in the seventh century, more than two centuries after St. Patrick kicked the bucket.

But more importantly, scholars agree that these accounts are hagiographical, i.e., they were written to idealize—and, given Patrick’s sainthood, idolize—their subject matter.

There’s a clear agenda here: Make St. Patrick appear more powerful than Ireland’s pagan druids. 

Ironically, this approach to making St. Patrick look good has backfired—at least with the people commenting on my videos.

Because it’s likely folks are turning to these fictional stories as evidence that the historical Patrick was a violent pagan-killer.

And while I’m tempted to go into exhausting detail about how St. Patrick’s mission in Ireland was a predominantly peaceful affair, despite the Church’s track record of committing unfathomably atrocious acts, both in the recent and distant past, that’s not what I do here on this podcast.

If you want to journey down shamrock-laden rabbit holes, go check out my YouTube explainer video/essay: “Was St. Patrick a Murderer?”

This is StoryTime. And now, your story:

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Saint Patrick in Your Pocket

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