AD 432

Saint Patrick

Traditional dating of Patrick's episcopal mission to Ireland

The best contemporary witness to Patrick’s mission is Patrick himself — and he never supplies its starting year.

A consecration nobody recorded

No surviving contemporary evidence fixes Patrick’s consecration, his return to Ireland or any particular missionary action to 432. The year comes from later Irish annalistic tradition.

His own Confessio establishes that he eventually worked in Ireland as a bishop, but supplies no calendar year for the start of that episcopal mission.

No reliable contemporary evidence names the bishop who consecrated him or locates the ceremony at Auxerre, Turin or anywhere else, and a commemoration of the ordinatio Patricii on 6 April does not securely establish the date.

Cumulative claims, not a year’s work

Patrick says his work produced many thousands of baptisms, and clergy ordained for new Christian communities.

Those are cumulative claims about a whole mission, not events independently datable to 432.

He gives no exact total, and he does not claim to have converted every Irish person or completed the conversion of the island.

What the later Lives added

Patrick’s authentic writings mention no shamrock, no snakes, no Tara and no confrontation with druids; those episodes belong to seventh-century and later traditions.

Two works are generally accepted as authentic: the Confessio and the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus.

Scholarly reconstructions place him in different parts of the fifth century, with proposed death dates including 461 and about 492 or 493.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~0432.

What the sources leave uncertain

The 432 date is traditional rather than contemporary. The Irish annals that preserve it were compiled later, while Patrick's own writings give no dates.
Scholarly reconstructions place Patrick in different parts of the fifth century; proposed death dates include 461 and about 492/493.
A commemoration of the ordinatio Patricii on 6 April does not securely establish the date of his episcopal consecration.
No reliable contemporary evidence identifies the bishop who consecrated Patrick or locates the ceremony at Auxerre, Turin or elsewhere.