Patrick (Gilla-Pátraic) (d. 1084), second bishop of Dublin, was the author of five poems and a tract, ‘Liber de tribus habitaculis animae’, which was distributed throughout Europe in the middle ages. He was a Benedictine monk, presumably born in Ireland and trained at the school of Worcester, where he became a friend of Bishop Wulfstan and where he may have written some of his works. He dedicated his prose tract and two poems to his friend Aldwin, bishop of Worcester.
Patrick is first mentioned in a letter from the clergy and people of Dublin to Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, recommending his elevation to the bishopric of Dublin following the death of Bishop Dúnán (qv) (d. 1074). The recommendation is independently confirmed in a reference preserved among the ‘Acta Lanfranci’. Patrick was duly consecrated by Lanfranc at St Paul's in London; the text of his profession of obedience to Lanfranc and his successors at Canterbury survives. The texts of letters that Lanfranc gave him for Tairdelbach Ua Briain (qv) (1009–86), king of Munster and Leinster, and Gofraid, Norse king of Dublin, are also extant. The letters refer to certain abuses within the unreformed Irish church and recommend that the recipients support Patrick in his efforts at reform.
There is evidence that Dublin became an important political and ecclesiastical centre during Patrick's episcopacy. He arranged for the erection of a vaulted church, which preceded the cathedral church built after the Norman conquest. It has been plausibly conjectured that he initiated the compilation of a short chronicle of Dublin, which covered from the year of his consecration till the death of his successor Donngus Ua hAingliu (qv) in 1095. The Annals of Ulster and the Annals of St Mary's Abbey record that Bishop Patrick and several companions drowned in the Irish Sea on 10 October 1084.