(by Frank McLynn)

A howling gale was blowing on the 16th. March towards the end of the fourth century around a Romano-British estate in Wales. Calpurnius, Patrick’s father, was nervous because his wife was big with child. The slaves on the estate had already retired for the night. The news was in that the Christians had beaten the Lions in Rome 2-0 when shortly before midnight the good lady went into labour. On the morning of the 17th. March the midwife presented a bouncing boy to a happy couple. Patrick would be his name. He lived a jolly life and thought Roman schooling not too important which is apparent from the clumsiness of his written Latin and his faulty syntax. Read his "Confessio" and you can easily understand why a boy born so far removed from Verulamium, a centre of learning and today known as St. Albans, took life as it came. His sixteenth birthday changed his life. Still a country boy, a greenhorn, he was captured by Irish slave raiders and sent with a few thousand others on a ship to Ireland. At that time Ireland had been continually attacking mainland Britain with much success and taking slaves as booty. The "Verona List", a Roman document detailing the savage raids of the "Scotti" from Ireland, tells a sad tale.

The Ireland to which he came was a very different country from that of his homeland. Roman influence had not touched Ireland and there was absolutely no infrastructure. Patrick had lived in a distant, rural region of Roman Britain, but the abrupt change he encountered in Ireland as a slave must have been both shocking and disconcerting.

As a slave in Slemish, possibly Co. Mayo, he tended cattle, sheep and pigs and lived in a typically protected settlement "a ring fort or rath" along with a large family and their slaves. During the long days and nights he had time to think and surmise. Among other things he thought of his Christian family’s background. People knew him as a decent youth in servitude and respected him as such. In the dark hours, hammered by icy winds and watery sleet, he would try to get some sleep. Sleep comes hard in certain parts of Ireland and dreams become reality at times. During one sleepless, draughty night he heard a voice cajoling thus: "We beg of you, young man, that you shall come again and walk among us". He knew not where.

He escaped his bondage and reached either Drogheda or Wexford, nobody is sure. Finding a ship and sealing a rite of brotherhood with the sailors, he joined them and headed for France.

Together with the ship’s crew, he set out on foot and walked nearly seven hundred miles from the coast of France to Auxerre. Hunger, thirst and lack of orientation bedevilled them, but Patrick’s faith in God kept things going. At one point, when there was no food, Patrick, who seemed to be able to converse with the sailors in some common language, called upon God for help. A herd of wild hogs appeared fortuitously, and the hounds which were accompanying Patrick did their job. I suppose you could say that they had a fine Grill-Party. Patrick had a way of talking to dogs as is described in "Confessio".

He was to be captured again, this time by the barbarians who had followed the Vandals into Europe, but he managed to escape once again. Where to? It seems that he returned to Britain to see his family. "Confessio" recounts thus: "et iterum post paucos annos in Britanniis eram".

Accounts become a little vague from here on, but we do know that he met Germanus, a learned bishop in France, who taught him and ordained with minor orders and told him a little about life.

There was another man around at this time, about 431 A.D., with a large following on the continent. Palladius was his name. He was actually the first man to visit Ireland, and his mission in life was to convert the unruly Gaels. However, he died within one year of his arrival; the weather was too rough .

Back to Patrick.

Amathor, a bishop who was involved with Palladius‘ followers around Auxerre, decided to make Patrick a bishop since he thought the lad was bright. Enough said, the deed was done.

Patrick was now a bishop.

He may or may not have visited Lerins, Marmoutiers, Marseilles (France) but he must have come into contact with Honoratus, a scholar and most erudite of men, who would have taught him much.

From here on Patrick becomes legend. Muirchìu and Tirechàn (Irish writers of the time) have written a lot about Patrick. They glorified the man to such an extent that it is quite difficult to determine fact from fiction..

Fact or fiction would have us believe the following:

There was the question of the "Holy Trinity". Three gods in one: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. The Egyptians had already figured that one out, built the pyramids, dammed the Nile and decided whether the Sun or something else was more important. Patrick was in the middle of a field being questioned by belligerent Gaels who were of the opinion that you cannot have three Gods in one. Things were not looking good when out of desperation he looked down and saw the humble SHAMROCK at the toe of his wellington boot, plucked it out of the ground and held it up.

"Here", said he, "we have three leaves on one stalk." There you have it! To this day, nobody can bate that argument! And wellingtons have been "in" ever since then.

Patrick was standing in the middle of a field again. It was cold and rainy and the dogs were hungry. The field was overgrown with nettles, ragwort, thistles, dirt, muck and dandelions. He asked the assembled people if there might be a Christ. No one reacted. Nobody could remember. 500 hundred years had gone by. Full of ire, he stuck his staff into the ground whereupon the staff bloomed and grew branches and the branches sprouted shamrocks.

There are few reptiles in Ireland apart from the politicians. Patrick is accredited with having driven every snake out of Ireland and sent them across the Irish sea to England where they still reside in Westminster.

Fact: (there are no snakes in Ireland today)

"When Patrick came to Ireland he had to fight pagan beliefs. He was with a number of his followers and he landed in Slaney, Co. Wexford and decided to have a bit of a pray. He and his group of followers were in hiding, but a young swineherd discovered them, told his master who then decided to kill them all as he thought they were a party of British raiders. Dichu was the man’s name but as soon as he met Patrick and looked upon his face he was so mesmerised that he threw away his hurley and was instantly converted. This took place in Saul, Co. Down. The anglicised form of the word means "barn" (Sabhal) and according to tradition, Patrick founded his first church there.

Patrick, who wrote about himself in "Confessio", describes his life in Ireland as that of a man who was "in senectute mea.". In other words "An auld man". But he was fit for life!

Having met the chieftains (not the world famous music group) and their tribes, talked to them and convinced them that Christianity could be absorbed into a hitherto pagan way of life, he converted thousands of them to Christianity but incurred the disapproval of his superiors in Rome. He was accused of accepting gifts from those in authority and derided for his lack of formal education. Is it any different today? But he believed in a God. He spread his message and he was only 500 years removed from the time that another man walked around Jerusalem in uncool clothes, sporting long hair, walking on water, raising the dead and having his feet washed by nice ladies.

No matter what he did or how he did it, he has given us a day to remember and time for a little reflection. REFLECT!

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