Who is St Patrick?

Those who recognize St. Patrick's Day celebrate it very differently depending on where they're from, and believe it or not, it's the United States that has turned the Emerald Isle's namesake tradition into a huge party scene, when its original intent was to be observed as a religious holiday.

For thousands of years, Irish Catholics have traditionally celebrated St. Patrick's Day by attending church in the morning and celebrating in the afternoon with a huge feast, honoring Ireland's patron saint. Even though March 17 falls in the middle of Lent when Catholics were forbidden to eat meat, this was waived in Ireland for feasting -- mostly on cabbage and Irish bacon, according to History.com.

Today, corned beef and cabbage is the traditional St. Patrick's Day meal, and in 2005, Americans consumed 2.4 billion pounds of cabbage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But who was Saint Patrick? The truth is, much of his life is a mystery. One of the most famous legends of St. Patrick describes how he banished all snakes from the Emerald Isle into the ocean and they drowned. Philip M. Freeman, an expert in Celtic and classical studies at Washington University in St. Louis claims in his book, "St. Patrick of Ireland," that this legend is false.

What is known about St. Patrick is that he was born in England to wealthy parents near the end of the 4th century. At age 15, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates from his parents' estate in the Roman province of Britain, and sold into slavery in Ireland, where he spent six years in captivity, according to Freeman. After his escape, Patrick wrote in a letter of an "angel" speaking to him in a dream, telling him to become a missionary in Ireland, according to History.com.

After combing through two of Patrick's letters, Freeman confirms that Patrick attended training to become a priest in Ireland and was eventually made a bishop. He converted many of the Irish people from paganism to Christianity. St. Patrick is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D., and many villagers across Ireland mourned his death on this day. From that, grew a celebration.