The Steadfast Man: Paul Gallico

Magonius Sucatus Patricius was a wild, carefree undisciplined Romano-British boy living in south-west Britain toward the end of the fourth century. The legions had been recalled to Rome; Christianity, the official religion of the Empire was in the ascendancy and the Empire itself was breaking apart. When he was sixteen, Patricius visited his family's seaside estate and was carried off by Irish sea raiders to endure six years as a slave, shepherd and swineherd in the pagan wilderness of Northern Ireland . He escaped and after many adventures in France made his way home to Britain. Thirty years later - now a Bishop - Patricius again braved the hostile shores of Ireland to begin the most courageous conversion in the history of Christianity: that of a nation devoted to Celtic Gods and Druidism. Gallico presents the reader with St. Patrick with reason backed with evidence, without recourse to the more dramatic myths that surround him and weaving in excerpts from two extant sources: Confession and Letter to Coroticus to separate fact from legend. A balanced portrait of the extraordinary Saint.