We may all be a little bit Irish today, but how many of us know how St. Patrick’s Day began? How many of us know who the real St. Patrick really was?

“Well he was not a leprechaun who drank green beer or had a blarney stone or a pot of gold,” explains historian William Federer, who wrote St. Patrick: The Real History of His Life, From Tragedy to Triumph. “He was actually a missionary and he converted 120,000 druids from paganism to Christianity.”

“He started over 300 churches and used the three-leafed clover to teach the [Holy] Trinity,” Federer says, noting that this teaching tool is now the symbol of St. Patrick’s Day and Ireland itself.