"The modern celebration of St. Patrick's Day really has almost nothing to do with the real man," said classics professor Philip Freeman of Luther College in Iowa.

Who Was the Man Behind St. Patrick's Day?

The real St. Patrick wasn't even Irish.

He was born in Britain around A.D. 390 to an aristocratic Christian family with a townhouse, a country villa, and plenty of slaves. What's more, Patrick professed no interest in Christianity as a young boy, Freeman noted. At 16, Patrick's world turned. He was kidnapped and sent overseas to tend sheep as a slave in the chilly, mountainous countryside of Ireland for seven years. "It was just horrible for him," Freeman said. "But he got a religious conversion while he was there and became a very deeply believing Christian."

According to folklore, a voice came to Patrick in his dreams, telling him to escape. He found passage on a pirate ship back to Britain, where he was reunited with his family. The voice then told him to go back to Ireland. "He gets ordained as a priest from a bishop and goes back and spends the rest of his life trying to convert the Irish to Christianity," Freeman said. Patrick's work in Ireland was tough-he was constantly beaten by thugs, harassed by the Irishroyalty, and admonished by his British superiors. After he died on March 17, 461, Patrick was largely forgotten.

But slowly, mythology grew up around Patrick. Centuries later he was honored as the patron saint of Ireland, Freeman noted. No Snakes in Ireland. The St. Patrick mythology includes the claim that he banished snakes from Ireland. It's true no snakes exist on the island today, Freeman said. But they never did. Ireland, after all, is surrounded by icy ocean waters-much too cold to allow snakes to migrate from Britain or anywhere else. But since snakes often represent evil in literature, "when Patrick drives the snakes out of Ireland, it is symbolically saying he drove the old, evil, pagan ways out of Ireland [and] brought in a new age," Freeman said. The snakes myth and others-such as Patrick using three-leafed shamrocks to explain the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost)-were likely spread by well-meaning monks centuries after St. Patrick's death, Freeman said.