St Patrick (detail) from Butler’s Lives of the Saints by English School (c. 1870)

Throughout the nineteenth century devotion to St Patrick was widespread, not only in Ireland but wherever the Irish had emigrated. Here an unknown artist has chosen to portray the saint in a way that recalls altarpieces of the Italian Renaissance. The saint stands enclosed by an elaborate arch at the centre of the painting. He is dressed in episcopal robes and holds a crook, symbol of a bishop’s office. Patrick is accompanied by St Columba and St Brigid, who occupy niches to either side of him. The majesty of the fictive altarpiece endows Patrick and the accompanying saints with a timeless authority, but with scant regard for historical accuracy. The artist has deployed a grand manner borrowed from the Italian Renaissance in order to exalt Ireland’s saint, who in actuality had repudiated all such grandeur.

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