trom Rome, he preached to the Gentiles and baptised many and built a monastery for them. This is what an ancient Life of St. Declan says upon the subject of the four bishops, his alleged forerunners, making their submission to Patrick: "The four Bishops aforesaid, who were in Ireland before St. Patrick, having been sent from Rome, as he also was, namely, Ailbe, Declan, Ciaran and Ibar, were not of the same mind as St. Patrick, but differed with him; nevertheless, in the end they came to an agreement with him. Ciaran, indeed yielded all subjection, and concord, and supremacy to Patrick, both when he was present and absent. But Ailbe, seeing that the great men of Ireland were running after Patrick, came to St. Patrick in the city of Cashel, and there, with all humility, accepted him as his master in presence of King Aongus; this, however, had not been his original intention. For those Bishops had previously constituted Ailbe their master, and therefore he came to St. Patrick before them, lest they, on his account, should resist Patrick. But Ibar, by no argument could be induced to agree with St. Patrick or to be subject to him. For he was unwilling to receive a patron of Ireland from a foreign nation; and Patrick was by birth a Briton, although nurtured in Ireland, having been taken a captive in his boyhood. And Ibar and Patrick had at first great conflicts together, but afterwards, at the persuasion of an angel, they made peace, and concord, and fraternity together. Declan, indeed, was unwilling to resist St. Patrick because he had before made fraternity with him in Italy: but neither did he think of becoming his subject, inasmuch as he also had the apostolic dignity: but having been at length admonished by an angel, he came to Patrick to do his will." Talking of the claims made for St. Ciaran of Saighir, MacNeill urges that southwest Cork, being, as shown by historical incidents, in touch with foreign lands, might well have got Christianity before Patrick came. Usher agrees with Colgan regarding the four first mentioned. But such keen thinkers as Lanigan and Todd decisively deny their pre-Patrician claims-and by some it is alleged that these claims made for the four southern saints were cunning inventions of the 11th and 12th centuries, when there was being waged a struggle for the spiritual supremacy of the Munster See of Cashel over the old Primatial See of Armagh. Archbishop Healy thinks that Ibar was probably pre-Patrician. He, anyhow, became a disciple of Patrick. He retired to the Island of Beg-Eri,' in Wexford Harbor, about fifteen years before the fifth century's end, and died in the last year of the century. The dates of the deaths of these men, as recorded in the Annals, and pretty generally agreed upon, tend to prove that they could not possibly have been pre-Patrician, unless we suppose them to have far outstayed the ordinary span-for all of them lived into the sixth century, with the exception of St. Ibar who, as mentioned, died on the threshold of that century. At all events it is a safe conclusion that there were groups of Christians in Ireland when Palladius, preceding St. Patrick, came. Palladius landed in the southeast of the Island. He stayed only a short time, yet—and this is additional evidence of his having found Christians there he had erected three churches before he left. He departed in the same year-some say driven out by a Leinster chieftain, Nathi-and went to Alba, where he died. It was on the news reaching Rome of his departure from Ireland and his death that permission was given to Patrick to follow his heart's desire, and, answering the cries which he had heard in his dream from the children of Focluit Wood, go to the evangelising of the people whom he loved. Lannigan, Rev. John, D.D.: Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. Keating's History of Ireland. Healy, the Most Rev. Jno.: Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars. 1 Says the tradition, when Patrick threatened Ibar that if he did not make submission, he would not suffer him to remain in Eire, Ihar answered, "If I will not be in Eire, it will be Eire where I am"-hence "Beg-Eri" (little Ireland). CHAPTER XIX ST. PATRICK THE coming of Patrick to Ireland marks the greatest of Irish epochs. Of all most momentous happenings in Irish history, this seemingly simple one had the most extraordinary, most far-reaching effect. It changed the face of the nation, and utterly changed the nation's destiny. The coming of Patrick may be said to have had sublime effect not on Ireland alone, but upon the world. It was a world event. The man himself proved to be a world figure-one of the massive giants who tower distinct and sublime above the dense mists of dim antiquity-one, too, of whom it may truly be said that the more intimately you approach him and the nearer you view him, the greater he grows. He was one of the greatest of Celts, became one of the greatest of Irishmen, and one of the very great among men. Patrick first came to Ireland-as a captive-in the year 389, in the reign of Niall. It was forty-three years later, in the year 432, the reign of Laoghaire, that he came upon the mission which was so miraculously to change the Island's destiny. An ancient Pagan prophecy attributed to Conn of the Hundred Battles says: "With Laoghaire the Valiant will the land be humbled by the coming of the Tailcenn (i.e., Patrick): houses across (i.e., churches): bent staffs which shall pluck the flowers from their high places." In the period of Patrick's coming the great Roman Empire was crumbling, while Ireland, with fleets on the sea and armies in foreign lands, had reached the pinnacle of her political power-a time that would seem the least propitious for winning men to the meek and abnegatory doctrines of Christ. Yet was it, in His own mysterious way, God's chosen time for sending His chosen man. There is endless dispute as to where exactly was the birthplace of Patrick, which, in his Confession he appears to tell us was in "Bannaven of Taberniae." Many authorities hold that it was 1 Though strictly speaking the only assurance to be found in that sentence of the Confession is that he was there taken captive. near Dumbarton, in the most Northern Roman province of Celtic Britain. Others hold that it was in the Celtic province of Brittany in France. In his Confession are pieces of internal evidence that sustain either theory. The fact that St. Martin of Tours was his maternal uncle is one of the strong points in favour of his Continental origin. His father, Calporn held municipal office in the Romanised town (of Britain or Brittany) which was his native place was a Decurion, a kind of magistrate, there. His mother, Conchessa, was niece of St. Martin. He himself was christened Succat, signifying "clever in war." Wherever he was born it seems to have been from Brittany, from the home of his mother's parents, where he was visiting, that at the age of sixteen he was taken captive, with his two sisters, Darerca and Lupida. It was in a raid made by the men who sailed on a fleet of King Niall, says Keating. They were borne to Ireland, and his sisters said to have been placed in Muirthemne (Louth) while he was sold to an Antrim chieftain named Miliue, who set him herding his flocks in the valley of the Braid, around the foot of the mountain, Sliab Mis.2 His occupation as a herd upon a mountainside was fine probation for the holy career that was to be Patrick's. He confesses in his biography that in his wayward youth at home he had forgotten God, and from Him wandered into the ways of sin. Alone with his herd upon Sliab Mis during the day and the night, the months and the seasons, his spirituality was reawakened. And God guided his feet to the path of duty again. "I was always careful," he says, in the affecting picture which he paints of the herdboy's wonderful days on the mountains, "to lead my flocks to pasture, and to pray fervently. The love and fear of God more and more inflamed my heart; my faith enlarged, my spirit augmented, so that I said a hundred prayers by day and almost as many by night. I arose before day in the snow, in the frost, and the rain, yet I received no harm, nor was I affected with slothfulness. For then the spirit of God was warm within me." And thus did he spend seven years in human slavery, working out, with God, his spiritual freedom. And his human freedom followed. In a dream that came to him he was told to travel to the seashore at a certain place two hundred miles distant, where he should find a ship on which he would make his escape. He found 2 One of his biographers, Probus, says that it was into the country of Tirawley, in Mayo, that Patrick was sold-and on the mountain of Croagh Patrick herded his flocks. There is grave doubt as to whether Darerca and Lupida were sisters (other than sisters in religion) of his. the ship and was taken on board-after first getting a refusal and being turned away by the captain-and in the seventh year of his captivity he sailed away from Ireland. And be it noted that the Irish land which he had entered as a foreigner, he now left as an Irishman. For, as he was destined to give a new faith and new soul to Ireland, Ireland had given a new faith and new soul to him. He had found himself and found God in that land to which he was destined to bring God. In his seven years' slavery the Irish tongue had become his tongue, and his spirit was the Irish spirit, which at that impressionable age he had imbibed. So, to make him truly one of the people to whom he was to carry God's word, God had wisely ordained his slave service among them during the very six or seven years in which men's characters are stamped with the qualities of those amongst whom they move. For it is not where a man is born, or spends the careless years of childhood, but where and among whom he spends the plastic and absorbent years of youth, that determines his true nationality. So the Irishman, Patrick, now sailed away from his own land, whereto had arrived, several years before, an alien Patrick. A three days' voyage brought him to the land from which he had been carried captive-after which a distressing journey of twenty-eight days through deserts and wilds brought him to his home, where the lost one was welcomed with great rejoicing. Yet, though his people resolved never to let him from their sight again, and though it gladdened him to be with his kin, his heart could find no peace for thinking of the country and the people that had grown into his soul, and had become his. There were centred the thoughts of the day, the dreams of the night. Till at length he had a vivid night vision, in which there came to him a man, Victor, from Ireland, bearing letters which were marked, "Vox Hibernionacum"-which, however, he could not read understandingly, for keen pathetic cries filled his ears, from the people of Focluit Wood beseeching him to come to them. "And there I saw a vision during the night, a man coming from the west; his name was Victoricus, and had with him many letters; he gave me one to read, and in the beginning of it was a voice from Ireland. I then thought it to be the voice of the inhabitants of Focluit Wood, adjoining the western sea; they appeared to cry out in one voice, saying, 'Come to us, O holy youth, and walk among us.' With this I was feelingly touched, and could read no longer: then awoke." I After this he could not rest inactive. He must prepare him |