Kidnapped at 16. Enslaved, threatened, targeted. Ireland's patron saint was a survivor.

As I'm writing, plans are afoot to dye the Chicago River green in time for Chicago's annual St. Patrick's Day parade.

Chicago's plumbers' union dyes the river every year. Please don't tell them, but for the five years I spent in Chicago, the river always looked a little green to me — even though they insist the dye only lasts a few hours.

St. Patrick's Day is a pretty big deal in Chicago, and in New York, and in other cities around the planet where descendants of the Emerald Isle mark this saint's feast day by celebrating their Irish heritage.

And frequently in not-so-saintly ways. By some estimates, it's the third most popular drinking holiday, with more than 13 million pints of Guinness alone consumed world wide — which contributes mightily to its rank as the most popular day for beer-drinking.

All of this is a little ironic considering Patrick was, in his own words, a "simple country person, a refugee, and unlearned."

And he wasn't even Irish.

Patrick's birthplace is a mystery, but was most likely in Roman Britain during the fifth century and probably near the coast in southern England (although the Welsh village of Banwen would beg to differ). His father, named Calpornius, was apparently a man of some authority in their community.

But it was a murky period in British history as Roman rule was in decline and invading Germanic and Gaelic tribes vied for power.

Patrick was kidnapped as a teenager and sold into slavery in Ireland, where, he says in his confession, "every day I had to tend sheep, and many times a day I prayed — the love of God and His fear came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. And my spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night."

After several years he escaped, made an arduous trek back to his family in Britain and studied for the priesthood, possibly in France. But his life in Britain was disrupted again, he said, by a vision that he was being called to return to Ireland to preach the Gospel to the pagans there. Friends, family and church leaders opposed his mission. He went anyway.

In his confession, he recounts his belief that God had delivered him from 12 "dangers which threatened my life, as well as from hidden dangers and from things which I have no words to express."

His confession makes no mention of driving snakes out of Ireland, or about using shamrocks to explain the trinity, but he does report the baptism of thousands of Irish converts.

He also recounts hardships and threats he withstood, both from Irish leaders and church leaders back home. A later biographer says he attempted to reach his former master, a Druid or minor king named Miliuc, with the Gospel — but that Miliuc spurned Patrick's entreaties to the point that he burned himself alive to resist Patrick's message.

Well, seems a little extreme. But so were the times.

What's clear in his confession is his recognition of his frailties, his refusal to take credit for his ministry and his determination to see it through. All without the aid of leprechauns or pots of gold at the end of a rainbow.

We also know that Irish monasteries became a refuge for scholarship during the period some still refer to as the Dark Ages, preserving history and literature for posterity.

Tradition says Patrick died on March 17, 461 — hence the date of his feast day, which has morphed into the raucous holiday we know today.

Some say we're all a little Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I might or might not be, depending on which story about one line of my ancestry is correct — the one about Donegal in Ireland or the one about Inverness in Scotland. I tend to prefer the Inverness account as it's all about dissent, persecutions and adventure.

But regardless of whether you're Irish, there are plenty of reasons to celebrate the imperfect but powerful life of the patron saint of Ireland. So enjoy.

Erin go Bragh.

Another time change, and you know what that means: We'll all be groggy for the next week

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: The man behind the myth of St. Patrick was quite the survivor