Patrick of Ireland
5th-century missionary bishop and traditional author of the Lorica.
Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British missionary bishop who, after being captured as a teenager by Irish raiders and held as a slave for six years, returned voluntarily to Ireland to preach Christianity. He is credited with the conversion of much of Ireland to Christianity over a missionary career of roughly thirty years and is honored as the patron saint of Ireland. The prayer known as St. Patrick's Breastplate, or the Lorica of St. Patrick, is traditionally attributed to him, though the surviving Old Irish text dates from the 8th century, three hundred years after his death. The attribution may preserve a memory of an earlier prayer Patrick himself used, or may have been added to give the text apostolic authority. The most widely sung English version is Cecil Frances Alexander's 1889 translation, which begins "I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity."
This is the traditional attribution; modern scholarship is divided. See the prayer page for details.