The ruined Roman bath-house at Ravenglass in Cumbria, known in Roman times as Clannoventa or Glannoventa, ‘the market by the shore’. It is a favoured candidate for St Patrick’s birthplace, as he was the son of a Roman town official, and the victim of a coastal raid by slavers from nearby Ireland.
Part 1 of 2
AT sixteen,* Patrick was abducted from his comfortable home and smuggled across to Ireland, where he was put to work as a shepherd.* He was thus deprived of a Roman education (his father was a Roman citizen and town councillor), but out on the hard hills, Patrick learnt to pray, and to trust in Providence.
After six years he escaped, and against the odds found his way home. Yet he dreamt that a man came and presented the petitions of Ireland’s people, begging him to come back, and be their bishop.
Feeling still too rustic and uneducated to answer the summons, Patrick went first to St Martin’s monastery at Tours, and then to Lérins, where he met Germanus, bishop of Auxerre. In 429, this Germanus had been tasked with stopping the spread of ‘Pelagianism’, the ideas of a rather moralistic British monk in Rome who had forgotten how much we all need God’s grace; and Germanus added Patrick, now a priest, to his team.
Most scholars accept a date in the fifth century for St Patrick’s mission to Ireland. If it is true that Patrick worked alongside Germanus (?378-?448) in his visit to Britain in 429 then that helps us a little – it might also mean he was present at the The Alleluia Victory. The sixth-century (or later) Irish Annals date his repose in 461-462 or 492-493.
His hometown is transcribed in one of Patrick’s two surviving letters as Bannaven Taburniae, otherwise unknown. One possibility is Ravenglass in Cumbria, a Roman seaside settlement called Glannoventa, ‘the market on the shore’, easily reached by Irish merchants selling to prosperous Romans. Glanna Venta Hiberniae, maybe - the seaside market of Ireland?
Précis
St Patrick was born in Roman Britain late in the 4th century. At sixteen, he was abducted and taken to Ireland as a slave, but the experience only committed him more strongly to Christianity and to the Irish people. Six years later he escaped, and after studying in France he returned to Britain with the influential Bishop Germanus of Auxerre. (60 / 60 words)
Part Two
The imposing entrance to the Monastery of Lérins, on the island of St Honorat in the bay of Cannes, France. It was here that St Patrick was tonsured as a monk and ordained priest.
IN Germanus’s company, Patrick witnessed the Alleluia Victory and other wonderful events in the land of his birth, but he knew his destiny lay in Ireland. Dreams still came to him of the Irish crying, “Come back to Erin!”
So when Pope Celestine’s choice as Ireland’s first bishop, Palladius, quailed before the ferocious hatred of the pagan chieftains there, it was no surprise to Patrick when Germanus recommended him to the new See.
The Druid priests screamed incantations at him; their chieftains perjured themselves repeatedly with wild claims of embezzlement and misconduct. But Patrick’s conscience was untroubled, and the ordinary people loved him.
He had a gift for matching familiar Irish things to Christian themes, and the sunshine of his gospel drove the fears and capricious gods of paganism away like a dark cloud.
St Patrick died on 17th March 461. He had gone back to the people among whom he had been a slave, and he had brought them freedom.
Précis
Despite the importance of Germanus’s mission to Britain, Patrick still believed his destiny lay in Ireland. When Palladius gave up his place as Ireland’s first bishop, Germanus recommended Patrick for the job, and in the face of bitter opposition from Irish kings, who were pagans, he succeeded in establishing a foothold for Christiaity there. (54 / 60 words)
