St. Patrick - Fremont, CA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 37° 32.017 W 121° 55.191
10S E 595433 N 4154618
Located in a chapel at Mission San Jose in Fremont, CA
Waymark Code: WMRHHM
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 06/22/2016
Views: 1
This work is easily recognized as depicting St. patrick by his green vestments and the shamrock he holds in his right hand and some smaller shamrocks in his left which also holds a staff.
A placard indicates that this is a wooden statue made c. 1890. No artist is indicated.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Saint Patrick ... was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, along with saints Brigit of Kildare and Columba. He is also venerated in the Anglican Communion, the Old Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox Church as equal-to-apostles and the Enlightener of Ireland.
The dates of Patrick's life cannot be fixed with certainty but, on a widespread interpretation, he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the second half of the fifth century. Early medieval tradition credits him with being the first bishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland. Despite a lack of detail, and many legendary accretions to his story, early sources concur in regarding him as the founder of Christianity in Ireland, making a start at converting a society practising a form of Celtic polytheism, and he has been generally so regarded ever since, despite evidence of some earlier Christian presence in Ireland.
According to the Confessio of Patrick, when he was about 16, he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Great Britain, and taken as a slave to Ireland, looking after animals, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After becoming a cleric, he returned to northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about the places where he worked. By the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland."