St. Patrick: The Irish Legend

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St. Patrick: The Irish Legend
Written by Martin Duffy
Robert Hughes
Directed by Robert Hughes
Starring Patrick Bergin
Malcolm McDowell
Alan Bates
Susannah York
Music by Inon Zur
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
Running time92 minutes
Production company FOX Family Channel
Original release
Release12 March 2000 (2000-03-12)

St. Patrick: The Irish Legend is a 2000 television historical drama film about the life of Saint Patrick, [1] the Welsh-born fifth-century saint who brought Christianity to Ireland.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Production

The film was shot on location in Ireland. [1] [2] After reading about the saint, Bergin got into the habit of reciting the prayer "Saint Patrick's Breastplate" every day before filming, [2] and continued this into later life: "if you do the movements for that you are essentially doing a kind of yoga". [3]

Supporting actor Alan Bates was paid £30,000 for two days' work in March 1999; he thought poorly of the film but used his salary to buy a Renault he coveted. [4]

Release

The film premiered on Fox Family Channel on March 12, 2000. [1]

Reception

Variety praised Bergin ("though it appears that even he is straining to keep a straight face through some of the more fantastical sequences"), and wrote that McDowell, Bates and York "bring some much-needed dignity to the production". It summed up: "An impressive cast and fabulous locales can’t elevate this well meaning but completely absurd costumer from years of certain servitude in parochial school auditoriums." [1]

Bates's biographer Donald Spoto says, "Drenched in saccharine piety and utterly lacking in historical accuracy, the television movie presented Patrick mostly as a sideshow miracle worker." [4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Fries, Laura (9 March 2000). "St. Patrick: The Irish Legend". Variety . Retrieved 14 February 2024.
  2. 1 2 Elias, Justine (12 March 2000). "Beyond the Revelry: The Saintly Life Of Patrick" . The New York Times . Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  3. ↑ Lynch, Donal (18 September 2017). "The prayers of Saint Patrick". Irish Independent . Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  4. 1 2 Spoto, Donald (2007). Otherwise Engaged: The Life of Alan Bates . BBC Large Print. pp. 383–384. ISBN   978-1-405-64885-1.


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