The Legend of St. Patrick

This is the transcript for the We’re all stories podcast. I highly recommend checking out the episode to hear how these complicated Celtic words are pronounced! https://www.buzzsprout.com/1685008/episodes/8214412-the-legend-of-st-patrick

Hope you had the opportunity to check out the special St. Paddy's day episode on the children of Lir. As promised, here is one all about Patrick himself, the man behind the myth. And some myths as well because what kind of storytelling podcast would this be without a good story? This episode goes out to musician extraordinaire Bryan Burger. You may recognize him from the credits as the composer and performer of all the music I use in the show. Thanks Bryan and happy birthday! Also a shout out to Kimberly for being my very first patreon supporter! If you want a shoutout in a future episode, join Kimberly as a supporter on patreon. You also get exclusive merchandise, recipes to go along with the episodes and more! So check it out! And now, your feature presentation.

Patrick was a Bishop in and around the 5th century AD. He is not an official saint per the Roman Catholic Church. At the time of Patrick’s life, there was no formal canonization process. Because of his works and life, he was proclaimed a saint by the people and is recognized by the Catholic and Anglican churches, though not officially.

Patrick is known as the apostle of Ireland. He is venerated as one of the apostles in the eyes of the people. Especially for the Irish.

By tradition he died on March 17th 461. We celebrate St. Patrick’s day every year on the anniversary of his death. St. Patrick’s day is a Holy day of obligation. Holy days of obligation are to be treated like the sabbath. On these days, believers are to attend mass and abstain from work and entertainment. It is a day to rest at home. Nowadays most of these have been reduced down to just going to mass and there are often special services in the evening or the night before to work around people’s work schedules. Only certain holy days are still fully practiced and these depend on denomination and what country you’re in. In Ireland there are only two holy days that are also work holidays, Christmas and St. Patrick’s day. So who was St. Patrick actually? This is what we actually know about St. Patrick from his Confessio, which he seems to have written towards the end of his life to the church, defending himself against some accusations they had against him and in which he gives us his life story.

As I said Saint Patrick lived sometime around the 5th century AD. He was a native to Roman Britain. He lives with his father, Calpornius, who is a Roman decurion, a kind of Roman gentry, and a deacon, an administrative position in the church. And with his Grandfather Potitus, who was a priest. His family appears to be well off, having lands and means, with political position in the church and from the Roman government.

They all live in or near Bannavem Taburniae. Ban-a-whem ta-burn-eye-ee) No one knows where this is. There have been debates and arguments for a long time now, since at least the 7th century. This is the only reference to this place and there are no extant records. Based on the accounts of Patrick himself, this was somewhere on the west coast of Roman controlled Britain. Not everyone agrees with this though. Some believe Bannavem Taburniae refers to Banaventa in Northamptonshire. Banaventa was a Roman walled town on Watling Street, a Roman road that connected many Roman settlements. The problem is, Banaventa is far inland, around the middle of the island and more towards the east coast than the west.

Some hold that this referred to Banwen in Neathport Talbot, wales. By local tradition, this was where Patrick was born and raised, and where he returned to go to school to be a priest.

Another possibility is Cille Phadraig, (keela fod-rig) now Old Kilpatrick in West Scotland. At the time this was part of Srath Chluaid, (Stra Cloyd) now Strath Clyde. In Kilpatrick there are Holy sites related to Patrick’s birthplace and records of people historically going on pilgrimage there. Though some scholars say that this is too far north and that it would much more be likely further south where there were more Roman settlements.

Remember these names. Both Banwen and Srath Chluaide will come up again a little later on.

Another theory is that Bannavem Taburniae is not actually in Britain at all. Rather it refers to Tarabanna in Boulogne-sur-Mer (Bull-on-ya sir mare) on the Northeast coast of France. This theory is problematic for many reasons. For starters, St. Patrick himself says repeatedly that he was from Britain. Specifically west Britain, but Britain nonetheless. Unless St. Patrick was very confused and mistook France for Britain. There are also many other references to Britain and parts of his story would not make sense if he was from France. Also, he makes a comment in his Confessio about how much he wishes he could return to Britain and how he had always wanted to go to Gaul. Gaul was a Celtic state containing a large chunk of Eastern Europe including France, Luxembourg, Belgium, a good chunk of Switzerland as well as parts of the Netherlands, northern Italy and Germany east of the Rhine. Bit by bit Rome would take over this territory until Julius Caesar finally succeeded with his Gallic campaigns of 58 to 51 BC. Later, in the decline of Rome, this area would be taken over by the Franks in 486 and it would eventually become Francia. After the treaty of Verdun in August of 843 Francia would be divided up into three areas to be ruled by the three sons of Louis the Pious who was the son of the great Charlemagne. These three parts are west Francia, Middle Francia and East Francia. East Francia would later go on to become the kingdom of Germany, Middle Francia becomes Italy and West Francia becomes the Kingdom of France. But at the time of St, Patrick, this was all still Gaul. So if Patrick had been born in France, then Gaul, why would he say 1) that he wished he could return home to Britain, and 2) why would he say he wishes he could have visited Gaul if he had been born and raised there? What this argument has going for it though is that is that when Patrick is returning home, he says it is a 28 day journey through wilderness to reach home. This is kinda hard to wrap your head around if he lived in a town right there on the coast of Britain.

The most plausible theory I have found is a little rocky. According to 7th century St. Patrick biographer Muirchú, (m-WEAR-uh-WHO) Bannavem Taburniae was actually the town that had come to be known as Ventre. (Von-tra) At least in Muirchú’s time. It is believed that Ventre was referring to the Roman British Venta Silurum which is believed to now be the modern town of Caerwent, (k-eye-r-went) Gwent, in Wales. I know that’s a lot of leaps but bear with me. For starters, Caerwent is on the West coast of Britain, which already rates it higher than most of the rest of these theories. It is in the Severn basin, next to the Bristol Channel meaning it was easily accessible to raiders. In fact this was a problem area because of Irish raiders specifically. Also, there are many considerably well preserved Roman ruins, including a number of villas. All of this comes together to make a pretty strong argument.

Likely we will never know where Bannavem Taburniae actually was. People have been trying to find it since at least the 7th century and if no one has been able to locate it in the past 1400 years it seems likely we never will. Like much else, it has been lost in history. One theory I have come across is that at least part of the reason for why there are so many possible places with such strong traditions of being Patrick’s home is because, as a Roman official, Calpornius may have moved around a lot for work. So it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he did live in many of these places, if only for a time. But let’s put all that aside, and move on from debating the specific location of his birthplace and start to look at his origin story.

A bit of recap. Patrick lived with his father and Grandfather at Bannavem Taburniae on the west coast of Britain. When he is 15, going on 16, he is captured, being taken from his family home and carried off to Ireland where he is sold as a slave. You may be asking why he was so easily captured, him being from a wealthy Roman family in Roman controlled and defended Britain. In 383, Magnus Maximus begins pulling his troops out of Britain, especially in the north and west areas. Rome pulls out large scale circa 406 AD to defend Gaul from the barbarian hordes that are crossing the Rhine into Roman territory closer to home. After Rome pulls out, Britain becomes ripe for raiding. When the people ask Rome to send troops, they are told they are on their own. So if Patrick was born in 385 as has been posited, that puts him smack dab in the middle of this mess and would make the whole thing make a lot of sense.

So he is captured and dropped in Ireland which at this time is wild and free and pagan since Rome never got around to conquering Ireland. Patrick becomes a slave in an alien land with an alien tongue. St. Patrick says that he was never particularly studious as a child with no great talent with words. So this teenager who isn’t particularly skilled in his own native lingo finds himself in a place where everyone speaks a completely different language. If you have never heard a native speaker of a Gaelic language, or even if you have, try looking it up online to see some writing, then you’ll really see what I mean. It is nothing like anything else you will find anywhere else in the world. This experience really disrupts Patrick’s normal education. Something St. Patrick seems to be extremely self conscious about in his adulthood. He mentions it repeatedly in his writing.

Now I feel the need to clarify something here. For a long time many believed Patrick was some illiterate country bumpkin, and his concerns about his knowledge and speech would seem to support this. I personally do not believe this was the case for a number of reasons.

The Roman school system was divided up into 3 levels the first level, ludus was focused on literacy and basic numbers as would be used for basic, day to day functions like buying and selling, weights and measures. No part of education was obligatory and many stopped here. When they graduated this, those that continued would start learning poetry, verse, grammar, etc. at level 2, grammaticus. Most stopped here. Only the elite went on to the third level, rhetor, which is where we get rhetoric. This was for the kids who would go on to be politicians. Here they learned rhetoric, public speaking, geography, philosophy, geometry, etc. Patrick was likely taken some point in his grammaticus level. So, though by his own admission he wasn’t the most attentive student, he had already had several years of schooling under his belt by the time he was snatched. The only thing he was missing was his rhetor where he would have learned the advanced stuff. This is why he felt inadequate when compared to people who had finished this, not because he was illiterate. Even considering, he probably had more education than a good chunk of the population. One has only to read his words in his two extant works to see that he was far from illiterate.

As I said before, Patrick grew up in a church house. His grandfather and father both being clergy, but he himself, he says, was not religious and did not consider himself a Christian. It was during this experience that He finds his faith. He becomes very devout, he says he prays a hundred times a day and an equal amount at night. In the course of these six years of slavery, he develops a very close relationship with God and begins to hear the voice of God and the messengers of God.

One night, a voice tells him that it is time for him to leave and that a ship is waiting for him. So Patrick packs his bags and heads out. The boat is waiting for Patrick in a port town two hundred miles away. He gets there the same day the foretold boat is set to leave. He heads into town and tries to book passage but the captain tells him to get lost because he's not wanted here. So he goes off to a hut to pray. While he is praying the crew calls him back over. They welcome him onboard and they set off.

They are 3 days on the water, crossing the Irish sea to Britain. Sailing is smooth and they land in Britain. Then they begin a long trek inland to Patrick's house.

This area in the text is a little confusing, it seems like there's a bit of a continuity issue here. See, Patrick is telling us the story of his trip home. They are traveling along when they run out of food. I guess the trip took longer than expected. Some theorize this was because they got lost. Being men, they didn’t ask for directions because they knew exactly where they were going and they weren’t able to check google maps for another 1600 or so years. Poor cell service and all. The crew are starving to death so they turn to Patrick and say hey, Christian guy, you keep telling us your God is all powerful, tell him to send us food. Them being out of the service area/time period for Uber eats. Patrick tells them if they convert, God will feed them. So though it isn’t explicitly said, I assume they did because Patrick prays and a large herd of pigs appears which the crew kill and eat their fill then pack the rest to go. They have ample food until the day they get back to civilization. In fact, Patrick says they ran out of food the same day they started finding people.

Ok, so far so good. But then Patrick says several years later he was captured again and taken as a slave. A voice tells him he would be a slave for two months. Sure enough on day sixty of slavery he escapes. Then he says he finally arrives at home with his crew and the whole journey took 28 days. Maybe a page got shuffled around or something, I don’t know.

Another episode that was merely a note in this was what he thought of as his temptation. Me, I call it a night terror. He says that while he was sleeping “I will remember it as long as I live! It was as if an enormous rock fell on me and I lost all power in my limbs.” As someone who has been through a night terror, i can strongly relate because this was exactly how I felt. But Patrick says he was guided through his ordeal. Despite not having religious training or deep understanding, he felt compelled to call out to Helias, that is Elijah. He did so and the sun rose up, banishing the feeling.

Anyway. Paddy makes it home and there is much rejoicing. His family tells him after all his ordeals to never leave home again. But while he is sleeping one night, Patrick has a vision. In his vision he sees a man named Victorious standing there with a big ol sack of mail. Patrick says the figure is carrying an uncountable number of letters addressed to him. He takes one to read it and he hears voices representing the children of Ireland reading the letter aloud to him. “We beg you holy boy, to come and walk again among us.” It was then that Patrick knew what he had to do. He told his family about his calling and sorry to disappoint but it is time for this baby bird to leave the nest.

Another interesting little sleepy time occurance was when Patrick has an out of body experience and is looking down on himself praying and sighing. He feels it is the Holy Spirit in him, praying on his behalf, just like it says in the scriptures, as he quotes “The Spirit helps the weakness of our prayer; for we do not know what it is we should pray, but the very Spirit pleads for us with unspeakable sighs which cannot be expressed in words.”

Another time while he was sleeping he hears a voice speaking with authority but Patrick can not understand it until the end when the voice tells him “the one who gave his life for you, he it is who speaks in you.” Further reinforcing in his mind his calling.

So he packs his bag and heads to church school. So remember Banwen, in Wales? One of the possible birthplaces of Patrick? Banwen rose up around a church and school called Llanilltud Fawr (Shanishtud vowr) set up by St. Illtud (Ishtud) around 500 AD. Making it Britain’s first college and Banwen Britain’s original college town. According to tradition in the town, among the many notable alumni is counted one St. Patrick. Only problem is, if Patrick died in 461, it would have been a little difficult to go to seminary postmortem.

Anyway, Patrick becomes a deacon like his father, then attains the rank of bishop. From then on like all bishops, he can only walk diagonally. It is at this point where he starts having problems with the other clergy. Apparently his good buddy who nominated him for bishop in the first place and who was the one who told Patrick the good news aboit his appointment. He gets jealous or something so he starts blabbing about some unnamed sin Patrick committed when he was 14 or 15. This sin occured before his understanding of religion. Patrick had confessed to his ‘friend’ in confidence when he started his studies, before he had even become a deacon. Now, I’m not Catholic and I don’t know a lot about how confession works but it is my understanding that 1) what happens in confession, stays in confession and 2) once you confess and are absolved, it’s supposed to be like it never happened. So this seems like a real jerk move on the part of this guy. It got so bad that Patrick says he almost quit religion entirely. But he stuck with it, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about him right now. He said God encouraged him in a dream. The voice of God tells Patrick that he has seen how “we” have been mistreated and was not pleased. Not he Patrick, but we, inclusive. Patrick and God. Confirming to Patrick that God was on his side.

Instead of breaking down, this experience seems to have built up his resolve. He sees his life and calling as fulfilling prophecy and the great commission to go out to all corners of the earth, spreading the gospel. Likely in his mind, since he saw his success as already foretold, he could not fail. That isn’t to say he didn’t work hard, or that things were easy, he worked hard, by his account almost giving his life a number of times, facing persecution from the Native Irish and the church whom he was representing.

Once he had achieved the rank of bishop, he says he received many gifts and requests to be bishop at this place or that and apparently there are tears when he turns them down. He feels he can’t go anywhere other than where he had been told by God, so he has to go across to Ireland. There was much resistance to this plan of his, his superiors in the church were telling him to go to the places where he was being requested but he refuses. A lot of people are offended and angry because of this but he sticks to his guns. He says he faced anger, hatred, persecution and even chains but in the end, despite any and all opposition he goes to Ireland.

When he gets there, the Irish are not best pleased, especially the older generations. Especially when they start seeing their young people embracing this new religion. Especially when these converts are beautiful, young, marriageable Irish girls who were volunteering to be holy virgins. Now in a culture where daughters are given in marriage for the wealth, prestige and honor of their families as well as to cement alliances and peace treaties, having them come home to tell you that they are nuns that can’t marry and must remain celibate, didn’t go over too well.

At least one of the accusations brought up by the church against Patrick seems to have been about money. I guess they were saying he was taking money and trying to take advantage of people while making himself rich. But he says he flat out refused to take any gifts or money. Not even “The cost of [his] shoes.” He even says that women would leave gifts and jewelry on the altar for him and he would track them down and return what they had left. Instead he is giving money left and right to people in need and to kings for permission to teach.

I think, especially knowing he was there against the wishes of the church, that he was extra careful with his behavior. He made absolutely certain that while he was there he kept himself in every way blameless and at all times above reproach. He didn’t want to give anybody an excuse to make accusations against him or his work, not for himself, but as a representative of God and for the sake of his flock. He didn’t want to give anyone any reason to look down on the Irish. He endeavored in all things to raise them up. Though this does not seem to have been enough because he felt the need to write this to defend himself. He also laments and is perplexed by the fact that his native Britain and members of the church look down on the Irish. Even then they were being considered lower than the ‘more civilized’ peoples of other lands.

In his Epistola he says “We have been made as if we were complete outsiders. Can it be they do not believe that we have received one and the same Baptism , or that we have one and the same God as Father. For them , it is a disgrace that we are from Ireland.”

This is a sentiment the Irish would feel for the next fifteen hundred years, and some still feel to this day.

Another apparent accusation against him is still his original sin. They are still mad at him for going to Ireland in the first place. But he tells them look, don’t you think I’d like to go back to Britain or take a holiday to Gaul? But I can’t. He feels that if he were to leave, even just for a visit he would be letting his new flock down as well as the Irish who were still pagan. He would further be letting God down by disregarding his calling.

It isn’t vanity that is keeping him there but duty and love. Love of his God and love of his new people. He says for these loves he would give anything, even his own life happily.

His only other existing writing is a letter he wrote to Coroticus. Known as his Epistola.

A little background. Coroticus was a king, believed to be Ceretic Guletic, King of Alt Clut, what is now Dumbarton on the west coast of Scotland from AD 410-450. This kingdom was part of Strathclyde or Srath Chluaide. Strath is Gaelic for valley so Srath Chluaide means valley of the river Clyde.

Did you remember what I told you at the beginning when I was talking about possible St Patrick birthplaces? Did you? If so, you deserve a gold star. Anyway, for those who didn’t remember (I'm looking at you!) One of the places that has a strong tradition of being the home of St. Patrick is Cille Phadraig, old Kilpatrick, in Srath Chluaide. It is theorized that the reason he is so familiar with Coroticus and his people is that they were neighbours.

Apparently Coroticus had his men lead a raid on Ireland where they attacked a town full of new converts still wearing their robes from their baptism. They kill them, taking the women to sell as slaves, prompting this letter. Patrick is not thrilled by this. He says he doesn't like sounding mean or harsh but he is just really T Oed right now. He calls for an embargo on Coroticus's lands, calling all Christian lands to steer clear and not to trade, visit or accept gifts from him. He says at least in Gaul when christian towns are raided and people taken as slaves the tradition is someone goes with money and buys them back but Coroticus refused the attempts of the Irish church to save their people and instead sold them abroad.

He is also excommunicating Coroticus and his men. But, despite all this, Patrick says that if Coroticus were to repent and return the slaves he took, Patrick and God would forgive them and all would be well.

So that is what we KNOW about Patrick from his own hand. There are old sources, I mentioned Muirchú previously, but not really any other contemporary sources. The one exception perhaps being in the writings of St. Germain who mentions A Patrick whom he had been mentor to.

All the rest of the stories we hear about St. Patrick likely started as oral tradition, stories that were told and retold and passed down through the generations, likely changing somewhat and being embellished a little more with each telling until they begin being collected and written down hundreds of years later by early biographers. Indeed, these folk traditions and stories over the years develop their own life and breath over time, taking on so much flavour that they are more popular than the actual stories about Patrick, which I think are already exciting in and of themselves. Due to their continued popularity these stories are better known to us now than his actual tale. These traditions have been passed on for so long and are so popular that many modern writers take them as fact. Of these many tales I have included a handful of the best known St. Patrick stories.

According to the Catholic encyclopedia, when Patrick was captured, he was sold as a slave to Milchu of Dalriada who was a druidic high priest. Dalriada or Dál Riata was a kingdom on the west coast of Scotland which extended across the northern channel to include a small piece of Northern Ireland. Now County Antrim. On his return to Ireland as Bishop Patrick, when he first reached the shores of Ireland he immediately went to his old master, to compensate him for the loss of himself, a runaway slave. Milchu on the other hand, hearing about the great works of his former slave and the miracles he was performing became so ashamed of his slave who was doing so much damage to his religion that he packed all his belongings into his house, torched the lot and threw himself on for good measure.

This next one is very briefly mentioned in the catholic encyclopaedia entry as well. According to the encyclopaedia, Patrick first arrived in Ireland near Wicklow head, at the mouth of the Vantry River in the summer of 433 but was chased off by the druids. Nonplussed, he regroups at the skerries islands. As he steps off the boat, his first step onto Irish soil, he leaves behind a footprint in the solid stone that can still be seen to this day. The native islanders tell a much more colourful version of this story. Patrick was chased off the mainland by the druids and moved over to the islands off the coast of Skerries. He arrives on what is now called St. Patrick island. He was traveling with a goat who was his companion as well as a source for milk. Patrick would set out from the island to the mainland to preach during the day before heading back to base. On one of these expeditions, while he was gone some people from Skerries stole his buddy the goat, killing and eating it. When the future saint found his goat missing he became very angry. He reaches the island in two massive strides. He steps from St. Patrick island to Colt Island, leaving his footprint somewhere on the island before stepping to Red island where he left the famous aforementioned footprint there. He confronts the goat thieves. The thieves, still leaking the grease from their fingers are like what? A goat, here? Never seen it. As they surreptitiously hide the bones from their plates. When they don't come clean, Patrick makes it so they can no longer talk, only bleat like a goat until they are ready to tell the truth. The people of skerries are still sometimes referred to as skerries goats because of this.

A lesser known account of mythic proportions comes to us from a manuscript from circa 1200. The manuscript is called Acallam na Senórach. (AG-al-av na SHEN-or-ach) Or the Dialogue of the Ancients of Ireland. This is a great source of Irish mythology and contains a good deal of the Fennian cycle of Irish legend. It tells the story of Fionn Mac Cumhail (Fin mac Kuh-val) and his mighty warriors of the Fianna. It is narrated by Oisín, (OSH-een) the son of Fionn and Fionn’s nephew Caílte mac Rónáin. (KwEEL-tcha mac Row-nan(the 'w' should be ALMOST silent.)) While young in the stories, they are both old at this point and are recounting the glory days of old. What does this have to do with St. Patrick? Well, see, the person they are traveling with and telling tales to is none other than St. Patrick himself.

The two mythic heroes of old are leading Patrick around, showing him the legendary places of Ireland and explaining how they got their names. Then in the end they turn to theology and debate the old ways and the new way of Christianity in which St. Patrick comes out the clear victor.

It is believed that this was so the Irish could keep their intricate stories alive, some 800 years after St. Patrick. Ireland is now a Christian country, to get around church censorship, they added St. Patrick to the stories and ended by saying Christianity is better than the old ways. Apparently this mollified the church because here we are all these years later reading their stories.

In the spring of 433 March twenty sixth to be exact, according once again to the catholic encyclopaedia, nevermind that they said he didn't arrive until summer of 433 and yet was able to do things on Irish soil in the spring of 433… but dates aren't really important here. Despite them being seen as set in stone in this source we have no real certain dates. Indeed scholars still argue about which century Patrick was alive in, not to mention specific dates. Anyway, that spring the Ard Righ (ard ree) or high king Laoghaire (leery) called a gathering of all the druids and brehons, (bree-hen) saying they need to talk about Patrick and to celebrate Bealtaine. (Bell-tin-uh) The king declares that no fires were to be lit until his was kindled. This was nothing new or crazy. Traditionally, as part of celebrating Bealtaine all fires would be put out. Then the Bealtaine bonfire would be set alight and all fires in the land would be lit from the bonfire. Locals add that it was also decreed that no fire was to be bigger or burn brighter than that of the king. Which is to mark the significance of the central Bealtaine bonfire. A command like that seems to be a pretty crazy order, fire being the only source of heat both for warming your home and for cooking your food or making tools. But for the people of the time this was normal and expected. Bealtaine is celebrated in May, usually May 1st and marks the traditional start of summer. But apparently in this year it was celebrated on Easter Sunday in March. St Patrick heads up to the top of the hill of Slane and lights his paschal fire before the king lit his Bealtaine fire, in open defiance to him. Locals also add that St Patrick also made sure that it burned bigger and brighter than that of the king. According to the catholic encyclopaedia, the druids also told the king that this was the fire of a new religion. A metaphorical fire that would burn in Ireland forever if it was not put out that day.

Like Queen Victoria would later be famous for, King Leoghaire was not amused. Him and his warriors and druids marched on over to show old Pádraig what was what. They march over and demand he put out the fire. Patrick says nope. So they try to put it out themselves with no luck. The druids try everything to no avail. The fire was blessed and protected by God himself. When this didn't work, they tried to attack Patrick himself but because of his divine protection, none were able to lay a finger on him.

All of their magic and incantations agaonst Patrick caused a great cloud to come over the land causing darkness worse than that of the plague of Egypt back in the day. Probably having a little fun at this point he challenges the druids saying hey, i bet you can't dispel this cloud. So the druids do all the spells and whatnot in their power to no avail. Then Patrick kneels down to pray and the cloud immediately breaks up and "the brightest sunshine lit up the scene."

Getting angry now the high druid Lochru challenges him to a one on one match to see who could do cooler stuff. Lochru jumps up and starts flying. Patrick just kneels down and prays again and Lochru is sent crashing to the ground where he was "dashed to pieces on a rock."

As the druids foretold, this was considered the turning point for religion in Ireland and the catholics had won. Some accounts say Patrick gave the king a choice, cake or death. Convert or die. The king talks it over with his people and he chooses to convert and is baptised. It is said that among the crowd of druids there was one Erc, later to become St. Erc and he was made the bishop of Slane. He is the founder of the church located on the hill of slane, the site of his conversation and of Patrick’s victory over the druids. the ruins of this church can still be seen there. According to tradition this same Erc was the future teacher of St. Brendan the navigator, one of the most famous missionary/explorers im history and it all goes back to the paschal fire of St. Patrick.

The catholic encyclopaedia tells it a little different. The king is unmoved by Patrick’s defeat of the high druid. Patrick would twice try to persuade him to convert both times with no luck. The king further commands that no one was to give him any honour or pay him any mind. Playing the old 'Patrick is invisible' game. If you have siblings, you know what I'm talking about. But Patrick’s attempts were not in vain. On the first attempt a page boy named Erc (sound familiar? )steps up. On the second, in front of all the chieftains the chief bard Dubhtach (do-ock) becomes a follower. It was also on this second attempt on Easter Sunday that Patrick is said to have famously picked a shamrock and used it to explain the trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It is thought that he used the shamrock both because it was there and a perfect example but also it combined the old religion of the people and their belief in the magic of nature and the teachings of Patrick.

After, moved by the words of Patrick, the king grants him permission to preach throughout the land and build churches. The ruins of these churches can still be seen all across Ireland. The church St. Erc built on the hill of slane is a ruin now. Next to it on the hill is are the ruins of a monastery that served as a school. It is at this school St. Brendan is said to have studied. Locals say that the king never converted and lived out the rest of his life a pagan. They say that from then on, despite their differences in religion the two became friends and it is because of this friendship that St. Patrick was allowed to preach.

Finally, I’m going to finish with arguably the most famous tale about St. Patrick, driving the snakes out of Ireland.

In Connacht, on the west coast of Ireland in what is now County Mayo sits a range of mountains. At their head is a tall mountain, the fourth highest in Mayo, it was called Cruachán Aigle. (Crew-han eye-gl) Cruachán is from cruach,(crew-ick) meaning stack. We're not certain what Aigle is, whether it is a word or someone's name or something else entirely. The popular theory is that it is from the latin aquila, meaning eagle. In fact, the Catholic encyclopedia takes it as fact that the name of the place is Eagle Mountain. This is one of the things I don’t like about that source, it presents everything as absolute fact when their sources are unsubstantiated collections of folk traditions that weren’t put together until hundreds of years after Patrick died. But anyway.

Patrick is seeking solitude so he climbs Cruachán Aigle and fasts for forty days at it’s peak. After his fast, as he is descending a horde of snakes comes out to block his way. In some versions it is an army of demons straight outta hell in the form of birds. Either way, they are blocking his path forward, attacking him and tempting him, trying to get him to turn away from his path. Padraig weeps and prays for the fate of his work in Ireland but his prayers seem to have no effect as it looked as if he was about to be overrun and consumed by the demons, with the last of his strength he cries out to God and rings his bell. At the sound of the blessed bell, the demons draw back in fear and begin to scatter. But this isn’t good enough for Patrick. He throws his bell at the throng of demons gathered there, be it in snake or bird form and drives them into the sea. That is why there are no snakes in Ireland, because Patrick drove them all out and into the sea.

Cruachán Aigle would later be referred to as croagh Pádraig. (Krah) today it is a holy site and many go on pilgrimage there.

That is the story of the life and times of st. Patrick. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you. May the blessings of Patrick go with you. Go raibh maith agat. (Guh ruh, muh hag-gut)

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig dhuit. (BAN-uck-tee nah FAY-la PAW-drig gwitch)