Chapter 6
5th and 6th Centuries,or there about.
Many a good and caring person, and heathen alike, would say that Patrick was a gentleman, and that would be true: as true as pen to paper; as true as the other five chapters of this history I have placed here.
It is, even to this day, that many still argue about his birthplace: some say that he was born in Dumbarton, and therefore, being a Scot was an Irishman…but Dumbarton back at that time, was in Britain…and if your about to say that he was an Englishman, I’d really advise against it!
Patrick himself said that he was born at Bonaven of Tabernia, and himself never told a lie in his life, would be believed, as I do, and you should as well, if your collar is not too tight about your neck.
Now if your asking where that was, I’d not be knowing. But ‘twas never in England!
Some say that Bonaven was the ancient name for Boulogne, and that would be making him a Frenchman…and you could say so yourself, just wait for me to leave the room.
It isn’t what he was that matter, it’s what he did that matters, and what he did he wouldn’t have done at all if he’d been English…or even French.
His real name was Succath. And to tell ya, that doesn’t matter either. ‘Twas the holy Pope himself ( a fellow named Celestine) that gave him the name of Patricius: and Patricius means Patrick, and Patrick he was and Patrick he is, and you can’t be denying that Patrick is a name more Irish than any other name anywhere in the world.
Well, his name was Succath when he was brought to Ireland as a boy and sold as a slave, where he worked amongst the pigs and sheep for six years or so, and it was about this time he had a wonder of wonders: a vision of God himself he had, telling him it was time to go, telling him to walk 200 miles to a certain ship and to a certain master of that ship, who would take him home.
Now it is no small wonder that Patrick had a vision of God…many a man, even women at times, have seem great, scary and wonderful sights…even I have had a vision or two in my time…but they have followed a night of hard drink, and a wild woman…so it was written about Patrick, that his lips never had drink or a woman, and to be telling ya, that’s the biggest wonder of them all, even over the vision of God himself!
Now when he was about thirty years of age he was granted another vision and in it he was presented with a parcel of letters and one of them was inscribed with the words “The Voice of the Irish.” As he was reading the letters, he heard a great multitude of voices crying out, “We entreat thee to come, holy young, and walk still amongst us.” And at first he did not understand, for no true Irishman would ever speak like that, but the voices cried out again, and he heard the accent, and knew it was the voice of Ireland. The Pope gave him his benediction and spend him on his way. In Gaul he was consecrated bishop, and he gathered his holy disciples about him, and sailed for Ireland, and landed on our beloved soil in the year 432, with the past behind him and his work ahead of him and the blessing of God on both.
Patrick and his followers made a permanent landing in Strangford Lough, County Down, after having a wee holiday on the island of Inis-Patrick, named after him, near Dublin.
Now it was a warrior named Dicho that was the chief (Laeghaire, the son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, was king of the land then) of the area at the time, and it was to him that the people came running to with a cry that the black-hearted, heathen Fomorian Scandinavian pirates were landing again, and they, with weapons in hand, the way the Irish have welcomed many from the days of Parthalon, and a cry of “Bloody unbelieving heathens.”, came running down to meet them, Dicho leading the way.
But they were no pirates, and they didn’t even have any weapons…Dicho was taken-a-back for a moment, not knowing what to do, other than taking their heads and knowing who they are later.
It was then that Patrick stepped forward, and his voice rang out across the field.
“I am Patrick!” His voice as sweet as morning air. “Lower your shields and you will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own…Resistance is futile!” And he converted them and baptized them and all their kin and celebrated mass right then and there.
Next he and his growing numbers went to Antrim, where lived his old slave-master, a man named Milcho. But Milcho was determined that no runaway slave would be making him change his religion, and not prepared to expose himself to Patrick’s persuasive tongue, set fire to his house and burnt it to the ground, himself and family along with it. What an Irishman will do to make a point.
Within the year, Patrick and his followers sailed south to the river Boyne and journeyed overland towards royal Tara to convert the king.
“Oh great Lord” Cried King Laeghaire’s ( pronounce Lerey) generals. “There be a great and mighty army before us!”
“Oh grand king! Your power,” his druids told him. “ and ours, will be destroyed forever if the flame of this army is not put out!”
“Is that so?” said the king. “Well, let’s go down and have a wee word with them.” And seeing that this was not a rebel army, and not one of them good to even argue with, save their leader, sat himself down, and his chiefs and his nobles and his druids sat with him: and he ordered that Patrick should be paraded before him.
When Patrick was brought to them, they remained seated…this was the old way of showing no respect to him and his…all except one man, who stood up and greeted him, and was right then and there converted.
“Shields Full!” Was heard the king’s voice. All those that were to late placing their shields forward, or not had one at hand, were also converted on the spot, from the sweet sound of Patrick’s voice. The druids’ oratory and arguments were useless against those of Patrick, who easily won, and made many converts of them also.
Now the brave king was not converted, for his shield and arms were mighty, but he was very impressed.
“All right then,” the king said, after listening to Patrick for a bit. “I don’t believe a word of it, but you put it very well and if everybody behaved the way you say they should behave, then things would be nice and quiet. So you have my permission to go about preaching your gospel to anyone prepared to listen to it and they can worship your God in heaven as much as they like, so long as the obey me here on earth!”
Patrick considered this to be a fair proposition, and for the next twenty-three years he traveled all over the land, baptizing all wherever he went, and ordaining priests so they also would have the power to assimilate, and building churches. He established the See of Armagh, and the last years of his life were spent between there and Saul.
It was at Saul that be died…starting a big argument between the people of Armagh and the people of Down over who was to be having possession of his body: so they settled it by burying most of him in County Down, and the rest of him in his church in Armagh.
Now the remarkable thing about Patrick’s mission to Ireland was the almost total absence of violence connected with it. He did not… like later Christian expeditions in other parts of the world…try to enforce the cross with sword. He was a gentle, dignified, peaceable man, and carried no weapons. This, being so out of character with the times, and any person still with their head on their shoulders; it being one way of keeping it there.
This astonished the Irish, for very few of them tried to murder him…that also being the way of the times.
King Laeghaire died a pagan (it being left to Patrick’s successors to convert royalty). He was warring in Leinster while Patrick was still alive, trying to extract his ‘tribute’, which the poor souls weren’t prepared to deliver voluntarily. He and his fellows were finally defeated on the river Barrow, two years after Patrick’s death, and he was captured alive.
After he had sworn by ‘the sun, the moon, water and air, night and day, sea and land…and God himself’, that during his lifetime he would not demand tribute again, they let him go. But the very next year he tried again and was struck dead by lightning. God and the elements revenge for breaking his oath.
Now some would be saying that this sounded a wee bit of superstition, not I, knock on wood. It was a fact, and there’s no superstition about facts: break an oath, and if God won’t get ya, the elements will!
There is no superstition about the fate of his successor, Oiliol Molt. He was killed by Lewy, son of Laeghaire, in a battle at Ocha. And Lewy, was killed by lightning while cursing one of Patrick’s churches near Slane…that family never did learn.
Some, even to this day, think that Christianity improved the Irish nature: others believing their love of drink and murder was too strong for it.
‘Tis a strong word, murder. And who’s to say that any Irishman was ever guilty of it, not I, if the mood is right…and to most, if not all, Irishmen, the mood is always right. And who’s to say that a killing is not a justifiable homicide in defence of hearth and home, even if it wasn’t their own, against the depredations of the powers of evil? And as you have seen from the other chapters of this tale, it was and is the right of any Irishman, woman or child to make war upon evil…real or not!
So as time went by, the land under the one God and the sweet words of Saint Patrick “Resistance is futile!”, the people moved forward in love, peace and Christianity. But it is the nature and habit of the Irish to go into things head first and think about it later…some things will always stay the same.
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