The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1903-03-14


ecclesiastical writers as to the nativity
and nationality of st. Patrick. Usher.
Ware, Colgan and other writer's Of en-
inence believe that he was a native of
Scotland; but this appears to be fully
exploded by the research and learn
ing Of DIR. Lanigan, who asserts that
st. Patrick was unquestionably a ma
tive Of France. One biographer says
he was an Englishman, but no Irish
man will believe 1t for a moment.
They all agree that he was a great
and good man. The following interest
ing sketch Of Erin's apostle is taken
from the Chicago Inter Ocean:
The most general opinion has allot-
ted the birthplace of the saint to a
place called Fitzpatrick, near Dunbar
ton in Scotland. DR.. Lanigan, in his
exhaustive treatise on Irish ecclesias-
tical history, thinks the weight Of ev-
iaence is in favor of France as his
native country, and he gives the birth
place at or near Boulogne sur-Mer.
Probus, also very ancient writer, as
sures us that st. Patrick governed the
diocese of Boulogne as bishop before
he set out for Ireland. Cardinal Mo-
ran, who wrote an article on the birth
place Of st. Patrick in the Dublin Re-
view in 1880, states that he was
Scotchman, and Father Hogan, q
learned Jesuit, inclines to the same
opinion, while Cashel Hoey, a we'll
known writer says that he was the
son Of a British official employed un-
der the Romans, who had previously
achieved the conquest of England.
In work of rare historical value
preserved in the library of Trinity
College, Dublin, and known as the
Book Of Armagh, it is stated that he
was born in Britain, not far from the
shores of the Irish sea, and st. Pat
rick himself in one Of the fragmentary
epistles which have descended to us
from that misty and remote period in
which he lived, says: II was born
the son Of Calpurnius, who was Of the
village Of Bonaven Taberniae" (not far
from the sea-. Furthermore, the saint
distinctly speaks of himself in his "con-
fession" as being 'after few years
again in Great Britain with my par
ents," from which it appears that lie
originally came from Britain and that,
as has been stated by Cashel Hoey, lie
and his parents resided there. The
venerable Oeugus, the Culdee, who
wrote long anterior to many of these
authorities, also traces St. Patick's
mother, Conessa, to British source,
while his biographer, Probus, who is
entitled to exceptional weight on ac-
count of the early period in which he
lived "a. D. G52), says: "While as yet
he fPatrick) was in this country with
his father. Calpurnius, and his mother,
Conessa, his brother, Rucht, and his
sister, Mia, in their city, Arimuric "a
Roman camp there took place a great
sedition in these parts of the sons of
Rathmit, the king of Britain devastat-
ing Arimuric and other adjoining
places, and killed Calpurnius and his
wife and carrying away captives their
children, Patrick and his brother,
Ituchti, with their sister, landed in
ireland" (Quita VIII, cap. xii.) While
therefore nothing is positively known
of st. Patrick's exact birthplace, no
author claims him as an Irishman.
(Yes, John Sichard asserts that he was
native of lreland.) The probabilities
are that he was sol of an English
official who resided at former Roman
camp near Bath, and that the place
which the saint speaks Of as Bona
ven" is the river Avon, which runs
into the Irish sea, as recorded in the
Book of Armagh, and which sea in
those early Saxon times was visited by
pirates who carried the boy slave to
Ireland. Patrick also, in his epistle
to his friend Coroticus, speaks Of the
Irish as "a foreign nation" (Gens ex-
tera), and he in turn, according to the
Book of Armagh, was referred to by
the. pagan Druids of ancient Ireland,