Did St. Patrick Really Drive the Snakes Out of Ireland?

If you’ve ever set foot in Ireland, you might have noticed the country is missing some wildlife that’s common nearly everywhere else: snakes. According to popular lore, that’s because St. Patrick drove snakes off the island in the fifth century. The true explanation, however, likely comes down to weather and geography.

In a dramatic account from centuries after his death around A.D. 461, St. Patrick stood on a mountaintop during a fast and banished snakes and other reptiles from Ireland and into the sea, thereby killing them. It’s commonly repeated in a simplified version that St. Patrick killed all the snakes in Ireland.

There’s no evidence that St. Patrick killed all the snakes in Ireland, nor did he chase them out of the country. In fact, he probably never even saw one during his time there.

Ireland hasn’t had native snakes since before the most recent Ice Age (approximately 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), which was long before Patrick arrived in the country, says Diarmuid Wheeler, headmaster of Chelsea Academy, a Catholic elementary and high school in Front Royal, Virginia. Snakes and other reptiles weren’t able to survive the cold, and after the Ice Age, Ireland became an island with no way for snakes to naturally migrate there.

The idea that snakes couldn’t survive in Ireland dates back as early as the eighth century A.D., says Sarah Waidler, a visiting assistant professor of Irish language, literature and culture at New York University. Today, there are three reptile species on the island: the leatherback turtle, the viviparous (common) lizard and the non-native slow worm. Although snakelike in appearance, the worm is actually a legless lizard.

The myth that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland dates back to the 12th century, but it’s hard to say exactly where it originated, explains Christopher Maginn, a Fordham University history professor and the former director of its Institute of Irish Studies. The story seems to have emerged in medieval hagiographies, or written accounts of the lives of saints. Jocelin of Furness, a 12th-century hagiographer who wrote about St. Patrick, describes a scene in which Patrick banishes Ireland’s reptiles and poisonous creatures from the country and into the surrounding water, Waidler says. Another early account is from Topographia Hibernica by Gerald of Wales.

However, the legend might be more metaphorical in nature. In Christianity, snakes or serpents often symbolize evil or paganism. For example, the devil appears as a deceitful serpent as is implied in Genesis 3 of the Bible. St. Patrick was best known for his Christian missionary work in Ireland, where he converted many people from their pagan beliefs and rituals. “Perhaps banishing snakes was an allegory for ridding Ireland of sin, or paganism or heresy, or all of these things,” Maginn says.