The Real Saint Patrick: 'an intensely loveable character'

 

We close the octave of posts on Saint Patrick's Confession by leaving the last word to Father Francis Shaw SJ. In the stirring quote below, taken from his 1931 work The Real Saint Patrick, Father Shaw brings together many of the themes we have looked at in this series:

By becoming familiar with the Confession, we shall secure certainly that Patrick will "come again and walk once more amongst us". For here in his own writings, shall we find the real Patrick an intensely loveable character, a man human like ourselves, grieved by the treachery of a friend, longing for the companionship of home and brethren, hurt by the sneers of critics, yet a man truly Christlike in spirit, meek and humble, simple and straightforward, practicing Evangelical poverty, a man filled with ardent personal love for Christ and burning with zeal for the salvation of souls, trusting in God for all things, desiring with great desire to die for Christ, in natural character a man energetic, resolute, indomitable, and possessed of an exceptional talent for organization and for government. Such a one was Patrick, the missioner whom God elected in those days out of all the world to bring "tidings of great joy" to those "men of good will" "who dwelt by the western sea".

Rev Francis Shaw, SJ, The Real St Patrick,  (Irish Messenger, Dublin, 1931). 

 

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Saint Patrick in His "Confession"

 

 Today we examine the views of Irish writer Alice Curtayne (1901–81) on the Confession of Saint Patrick. In 1931 the Anthonian Press published her Saint Patrick: Apostle of Ireland, a short illustrated biography in the style of her Saint Brigid:The Mary of Ireland which the same company issued two years later. But in 1951, a year after its founding at Maynooth, she contributed an article entitled Saint Patrick in His "Confession" to the Irish religious periodical The Furrow. She begins by acknowledging the authenticity of the work, adding that 'its chief interest is the striking portrait it presents of its author'. Yet it isn't long before she too expresses a sense of frustration with the way the Confession was framed: 

 He had indeed written a golden page in the history of the Christian Church. We know now that his was permanent achievement if ever a man's life-work could be so described, But does he give an account of himself in the terms of a success story?  By no means. His brief record, which can be read attentively in less than half an hour, is a humble, laborious and at time incoherent, effort to tell with absolute honesty the work of God in himself. It is of particularly curious interest to read the "Confession" during March, when the churches of Ireland and in the far-flung empire of Ireland overseas are resounding with hymns to his praise, and see what he wrote about himself fifteen hundred years ago. His opening is like a douche of cold water:

I Patrick, the sinner, am the most illiterate and the least of all the faithful and contemptible in the eyes of very many. 

He then tells the facts of his life with the extremist brevity.....  

Alice Curtayne, is not, of course alone in her frustration with the lack of biographical detail in Saint Patrick's writing. As she goes through the main details of his career acknowledging that 'Patrick's "Confession " incidentally reveals a man of great physical courage', her irritation re-surfaces:

 But the whole message of the "Confession" is the wonderful work of God through such a despicable instrument as himself, "a fool" (he says), "the abhorred of this world". He returns again and again, with a repetition that is almost wearisome, to the subject of his ignorance:

I had long since thought of writing; but I hesitated until now... today I blush and am exceedingly afraid to lay bare my lack of education; because I am unable to make my meaning plain in a few words to the learned...Perchance it seems to not a few that I am thrusting myself forward in this matter with my want of knowledge and my slow tongue...

 Alice Curtayne suggests that the slowness of tongue could only have applied to his Latin as Saint Patrick acquired Irish during his captivity which gave him a considerable advantage in his missionary work:

He could peach to the people in their own language. His phenomenal success with them does not argue any lack of either intelligibility or fluency.  

 But despite her frustration with Saint Patrick as a writer, the article ends on a positive note:

 In another part of the "Confession", he summarizes his work in Ireland as "to define doctrine and make known the gift of God and everlasting consolation". It is particularly fitting that his feast-day should occur in the fullness of spring-time, the season of hope. Even the brief extracts given above show how radiant with hope is the testimony that Saint Patrick has left us. 

 Curtayne, A. (1951). Saint Patrick in His “Confession.” The Furrow, 2(3), 150–160. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27655737

 

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THE CONFESSION OF ST. PATRICK

 

 

 'The Confession of Saint Patrick' is an article from an Australian Catholic news magazine published in 1937. The anonymous author declares that 'There is no more affecting document in any literature than the “Confession of St. Patrick' and feels that its unpolished nature reveals the human Patrick in all his frailty. Just how rustic and unlearned Saint Patrick actually was is still the subject of scholarly debate. Some feel that despite his protestations, the writer and his work were rather more sophisticated than he would have us believe. But the writer of this article sees the literary shortcomings of the Confession as adding immeasurably to its appeal and to the humanity of its writer. He closes with a moving tribute to the faith of Saint Patrick, discovered on the 'desolate slopes of Slemish'. 

THE CONFESSION OF ST. PATRICK.

 “And this is my confession before I die!” It is not the great Thaumaturgus, looking back on a road made straight and smooth by miracles, but just a tired old man, worn out with age, and great labours, and great sorrows, and disappointments; this Patrick, who sits him down in the quiet hour before the darkness to defend his Mission, and, incidentally, to tell the story of his life. We feel we can come very close to the aged missioner, who has known so much of life’s troubles, whose successes have been achieved at the cost of so much toil, and sacrifice, and suffering, and who has had to endure the keenest pain of all — to be betrayed by his trusted friend, and to be misunderstood and unjustly charged by his superiors. Beautiful and majestic is the St. Patrick beloved by poets and artists, overcoming the Druids on Tara by the might of his miracle-working crozier. But this human Patrick of the “Confession” so simple, so direct, so conscious of his own failings and limitations—and at the same time so conscious of the “great things” wrought by the Spirit through his instrumentality — this is the Patrick who is dear to us, even as our own fathers! 

There is no more affecting document in any literature than the “Confession of St. Patrick,” and the halting language in which it is written, the absence of all art, or literary craftsmanship, in its composition, the uncouth “rusticity” of its phrasing, add immeasurably to its appeal. We seem to see the old man “screwing himself up,” so to speak, to write it. He knows to what criticism his want of scholarship is going to expose him—especially from those learned brethren who have so often objected to an “unlettered man like him being left in charge of a Mission to such a cultured race as the Irish; “Behind my back they were speaking one with another and saying, ‘Why does this man put himself into danger amongst hostile people who know not God?’ This they did not put forward through malice, but it did not seem right to them on account of my being untutored, as, according to my own testimony, I have understood.” This want of education, which is the most serious of his opponents’ charges against his fitness for the post, is he not going to deliver the very proof of it in the document that presents his defence? He knows it: “For this reason I have long since thought of writing, but even until now I hesitate, for I feared I should incur the censure of the tongues of men; for I have not been educated as others have, who, accordingly, in an excellent manner, have imbibed both Law and Sacred Scripture alike, and have never changed their speech from childhood, but rather have ever been bringing it to perfection. For my speech and word has been translated into a foreign tongue, as may be easily proved from the flavour of my writing.” Not unskilful pleading this, for all its lack of the advocate’s gift of “form.” There emerges from it the first point of his defence—viz., that if he had not as much Latin as his critics, he had something more immediately useful to him for the purposes of his Mission: a good knowledge of Irish. 

He, himself, seems conscious that better than long years of college has been the training he has got fop his Mission through the hard things that befell him in his youth. Scene after scene rises up before him out of the past, and he sees how God was following a plan with him all the time, moulding and shaping him for the work He had designed for him. He sees himself again—a merry, thoughtless boy in his father’s comfortable home.Idle and careless he may have been, not very fond of school —he remembers now ruefully the opportunities he missed fonder of passing his days on his father’s farm, near Bannavem Taberniae, than in the township school, where doubtless Calpurnius would have liked to see this high-spirited lad of his preparing himself, by serious study, to follow his own decorous footsteps in a prosperous official career. Perhaps, if he had been at school instead of out at the “villula” that terrible day of the Slave Raid he might have lived and died, like his father and grandfather before him, a smug “decurion” of a small provincial Roman township But he would never have grown into the St. Patrick whose God-given Mission it was to lead Eire “virgin to Christ.”

 For that Mission’s accomplishment he had first to find Christ himself. Exquisite the passage of the “Confession” in which he tells us how he found Him—amid the solitude of the wintry hills, where, a poor slave boy, he tended his master’s flocks for six long years. Forgotten were cold, and hunger, and loneliness, and grief for the loss of home and kindred, in the warm glow of the Presence of which he had suddenly become conscious, on the desolate slopes of Slemish. 

'SAINT PATRICK'.THE NEWCASTLE AND MAITLAND CATHOLIC SENTINEL,  March 1, 1937, p.200.

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Discovering the Real Saint Patrick through his Confession

 

Last month the blog featured the work of Irish writer Alice Curtayne on Saint Brigid. Today we can look at the work of one of her contemporaries, Father Francis Shaw (1907–70), described by the Dictionary of Irish Biography online as a 'Jesuit priest, Celtic scholar and historical polemicist'. But three decades before he famously became embroiled in the reassessment of Patrick Pearse and the Easter Rising, Father Shaw wrote about the mission of Saint Patrick. It is interesting to see how his critique of the relationship between our national patron and his people in some ways mirrors that of Alice Curtayne on Saint Brigid. She questioned, for example, whether artistic depictions of our patroness only served to further obscure an already shadowy figure. In his 1930 article St. Patrick: A Study in Missionary Achievement, Father Shaw echoed these concerns: 

Certain aspects of St. Patrick's character and career have been worn threadbare in modern literature. In some respects, it may be said that the work of this Saint is well known. Of the strength of the popular devotion to St Patrick, there can be no doubt. Professor MacNeill has said "No one man has ever left so strong and permanent impression on a people, with the single and eminent exception of Moses." While this is undoubtedly true, is it not also true to say that our conception of St. Patrick is, to say the least of it, often hazy and vague? Little attempt is ever made to understand the man himself as he truly was. Are we not too ready to accept the conventional portrait of the tall, bearded man, dressed in green vestments, mitred and with crozier in hand, who stands stiffly on the green sward of Eire and ushers into the sea a whole herd of singularly inoffensive-looking snakes?

For Father Shaw iconography was just a part of the problem. Hagiography, which was still not fully understood at the time he was writing, in his eyes made of Saint Patrick 'an impossible and even a ludicrous figure'. But Father Shaw has the key to uncovering the man both the portrait makers and the medieval writers served to make less real. For, unlike Saint Brigid, our chief patron has left us an account of his mission written in his own words and it is here that the 'real Patrick' will be found:

We have quoted frequently from the Confession and it is in this document that we must find the real Patrick..."Because I wish my brethren and kinsfolk to know what manner of man I am, and that they may be able to understand the desire of my soul." The Confession is not then an autobiography of the saint. It is rather a revelation of the workings of God's grace in the heart of Patrick the missionary, and as such, it has an interest for us far greater than a mere record of events would have. 

And Father Shaw concludes that the real Patrick revealed by the Confession is a powerful figure:

 In studying the work and achievement of the Saint, we have seen evidence of "a strong personality, energetic in action, steadfast, resolute, indomitably persevering," of a practical capacity for organisation and of a natural talent for government. The secret of these qualities is revealed in the Confession. Here we find the motive force for all this energy. On every line of this passionate revelation of soul, the Saint's strong personal love for Christ is shown forth. He has left his home and people to be an exile for the love of Christ. He has endured suffering and tribulation for the love of Christ.

Rev. Francis Shaw, S.J., “St. Patrick: A Study in Missionary Achievement.” The Irish Monthly Volume 58, (1930) 132–49. 

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Treasuring the Writings of our Father in the Faith

In yesterday's post we were reminded of Saint Patrick's unique status as a documented saint of fifth-century Britain and Ireland. This is a point reiterated by one of Saint Patrick's more recent translators, Sister Máire B. de Paor, PBVM. In the introduction to her 1998 analysis of Saint Patrick's writings she states:

Saint Patrick is known to many as Apostle of Ireland; as first Romano-British missionary bishop, beyond the pale of Roman civilisation, he is known to a few; but as a littérateur of stature and genius and a spiritual thinker of great depth and originality, he is relatively little appreciated...Yet, in Patrick's writings we have two unique, personal, spiritual documents from the darkest of the Dark Ages, fifth-century Northern Europe. Indeed, they are the only personal documents that can be claimed by either the Church in Britain or the Church in Ireland from that troubled century.

..We Irish are, moreover, the only nation who have the great privilege of treasuring the writings of our Father in the faith about his founding of the Christian Church in our country. Conscious of the unique Christian heritage bequeathed to us by our national apostle who has left such an indelible impression on his people, I have attempted a modest literary and spiritual exposé of his writings to mark the fifteenth centenary of his death.

Máire B. de Paor, PBVM, Patrick the Pilgrim Apostle of Ireland- An Analysis of St Patrick's Confessio and Epistola (Dublin, 1998), 6-7.

Having witnessed the attempts to de-Christianize the celebration of Saint Patrick's Day 2026 here in Ireland, it would seem that our need to appreciate the privilege of treasuring our national apostle's writings has become more pressing.

 

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Saint Patrick: The Documented Saint

Today we begin a series of posts exploring some opinions, old and new, about Saint Patrick's Confession. I have often thought that we do not sufficiently appreciate what a blessing it is to be able to read our national apostle's own words. Yes, the Confession raises tantalizing glimpses of Saint Patrick's life and mission, only to leave us with many unanswered questions. Yet we are privileged to be able to hear the voice of a man of the fifth century in these islands at all, as  this is a century noted for a dearth of historical sources. It was only in the nineteenth century when the first English translations appeared that Saint Patrick's writings were made available to the wider Irish public. Now in the twenty-first century we can readily access translations online as well as an entire site dedicated to Saint Patrick's writings courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy's Confessio site which reminds us that 'Patrick is the first identifiable person in Irish history to have his life story recorded'. It is the idea of Saint Patrick being a documented saint which also impressed the anonymous writer of the 1936 Australian newspaper article below. Curiously,  he does not draw on the actual writings in the piece but the point that alone of all the patrons of Britain and Ireland, it is only Saint Patrick whose 'writings are his great and enduring monument' is well made:

 

ST. PATRICK

The Documented Saint

Little is known of the patron saints of  England, Scotland and W ales. But  the patron Saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, is quite another matter. His name is imperishably associated with Slemish and Slane, with Fochlut or Trelawley and Downpatrick. But his writings are his great and enduring monument — his confession, his letter to Caroticus, and his immortal breastplate. 

WHO St. George was remains a mystery, and his connection with England is mythical. St. Andrew was the brother of Peter, and his one great good deed was the bringing of that brother to Jesus. We know little else of him and that he ever reached the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond by either the high road or the low road is highly improbable. St David of Wales has left no relic in building, grave, or writing, only a fragrant memory of devotion and zeal. 

BIRTHPLACE UNCERTAIN. 

YET with all the information contained in the priceless St. Patrick documents there is considerable uncertainty about his birthplace— and some features, of his work are puzzling. Scotland, Wales,  and France claim him as a son of their soil. He had associations with all three, but which gave. him birth remains in doubt There is a controversy as to whether he introduced Christianity to Ireland or whether there were not a number of churches in the land when he began his mission. Some usages of the Irish Church differ widely from those in vogue on the Continent. The rapidity with which he accomplished the conversion of Ireland seems miraculous. In one short lifetime he founded churches in every province and consecrated many bishops. 

CELEBRATION OF EASTER. 

THE great difference between the Celtic Church and the Roman was the date of the celebration of Easter, The Irish followed the Eastern custom, which synchronised Easter with the date of the Jewish Passover, the 14th day of the first month (Nisan or Abib). This provided that Easter Day might not fall on a Sunday. But the Western Church insisted that it should fall on the first Sunday after the full moon — so that if the 14th were a Sunday — Easter would be celebrated on the 21st to keep it apart from the Jewish rite. This was decided by the Roman Church in 198 A.D. The remarkable fact is that Ireland did not concur with this decision until the seventh century. Tradition places the education of St Patrick in the south of Gaul. At that time (the second century) St. Irenaeus of Lyons was the leading Christian' there. He was a native of Asia Minor and favoured the Eastern usage of observing Easter for a- time, hut later conformed to the usage of the West. The supposition is that St Patrick came under the tutelage of St Irenaeus and knew only his earlier custom, and so brought that custom to Ireland. There seems some plausibility in this contention. 

ST. PATRICK'S CREED. 

ONE of the most interesting relics of St. Patrick is his Creed, which is given in full: — 

"There is no other God, nor was there ever any in time past, nor shall there be hereafter, except God the Father, un-begotten, without beginning, almighty,' as we say. And His Son, Jesus Christ, whom we declare to have always existed with the Father, from the beginning of the world, after the manner of a spiritual existence begotten .Ineffably before all beginning. And by Hjm were made things visible and invisible. He. was made man, and having overcome death He was received up into Heaven by the Father. And he gave to Him all power above every name of things in Heaven and things in earth and things under the earth. And let every tongue confess to Hjm that Jesus Christ is Lord and God in whom we believe. And we look for His coming soon to judge the quick and the dead, who will render to every man according to his deeds. And He shed on us abundantly the Holy Ghost, the gift and earnest of immortality, who makes those who believe and obey to become children of God, and joint heirs with Christ, whom we confess and adore as One God in the Trinity of the Holy Name." 

The power of one consecrated life is immensely great. In whatever century he lived and worked he made a marvellous transformation in Ireland. He may not have accomplished all that is ascribed to him. but he initiated a movement that still pulsates with life. He was ill-treated in his youth by Irish people, made a slave, hardly used by unkind masters, yet he returned good for evil, brought news of the noblest freedom to those who deprived him of liberty, prayed, toiled and died for those who despised him.

 

ST. PATRICK, The Telegraph  (Brisbane 1936, March 17), p. 12. 

 

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'This word of God in his mouth was like a fire': Meditation on Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland

 

A meditation for Saint Patrick's Day from Bishop Richard Challoner (1691-1781). I have a 1934 edition of his Meditations for Every Day of the Year and was delighted to find an entry for Saint Patrick's Day among them. I have long been interested in this heroic Englishman, best known for his commentary on the Douay-Rheims Bible and for his prayer book The Garden of the Soul, which was widely known and loved in Ireland too.  I also appreciate Bishop Challoner's work on the martyrs of the Reformation period, Memoirs of missionary priests, and other Catholics of both sexes, that have suffered death in England on religious accounts from the year 1577 to 1684, for he included Irishmen, such as Blessed John Roche and the tragic Mr Ailworth, who were martyred in England. In his meditation on Saint Patrick, Bishop Challoner follows his usual pattern of giving the reader three points to consider before drawing a conclusion. And I certainly won't dissent from his conclusion:

Conclude to offer up to God, on this day, a heart full of love and gratitude for the innumerable graces and blessings bestowed upon this island through the ministry of St. Patrick, and of that long train of Saints who have descended from him. Let us never degenerate from these our parents in Christ, or forget the glorious examples of their heroic virtues. O! who shall give us to see Ireland once more an island of Saints!

 I will conclude myself with a prayer for the beatification of Bishop Challoner, whose cause was opened in 1947, a cause this Irish woman would rejoice to see succeed. Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

PRAYER FOR THE BEATIFICATION OF BISHOP CHALLONER
O God, who didst make thy servant Richard a true and faithful pastor of thy little flock in England, deign to place him among the Blessed in thy Church, so that we who profit by his word and example may beg his help in heaven for the return of this land to the ancient faith and to the fold of the one true Shepherd Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

 

MARCH 17

ON ST. PATRICK, APOSTLE OF IRELAND

Consider first, how much we owe to God for having called this nation, by the ministry of St. Patrick, from darkness and the shadow of death that is, from infidelity, idolatry, and vice, into his admirable light; and from being the seat of the reign of Satan, where he for so many ages had exercised his tyranny without control, to become an island of Saints! O! what ought to be then the devotion of this day! how ought we to glorify God for this inestimable benefit of our vocation, and for all those other unspeakable gifts and graces which have been derived from this source! What veneration do we not owe to this our blessed Apostle, whom our Lord has chosen to be his instrument in this great work; who by his labours, by his preaching, and by his prayers, first brought Christ amongst us, and who first opened to us, through Christ, the fountains of mercy, grace, and salvation, which flow to this day! O! let us praise the Lord in his Saints.

Consider 2ndly, in what manner God prepared St. Patrick for this admirable work, and by what steps he brought him on from virtue to virtue, till he was perfectly qualified for the Apostleship. His Providence ordained that in his tender years he should be carried captive into that very land which he was afterwards to deliver from the slavery of Satan. Here he not only became acquainted with the language and manners of the people, but what was of infinitely more advantage to him, learned to spend his whole time, night and day, whilst he tended his master’s cattle, in the exercises of prayer and penance; by which he laid a solid foundation for an apostolic life. After he was released from his slavery, and received amongst the clergy, he employed many years abroad, under the discipline of the most eminent servants of God, in order to dispose and qualify himself to answer that divine call, by which he had been invited to the conversion of the Irish, which he then took in hand, when after this long preparation, he received both his episcopal consecration and mission from the Vicar of Jesus Christ, St. Celestine, Bishop of Rome. Thus the Spirit of God, by a long course of spiritual exercises, fitted our Saint for the great work for which he designed him; thus he gradually took full possession of that soul, by which he was to bring so many thousand souls to be his eternal temples. See, Christians, by what kind of exercises, of retirement, penance, and long-continued prayer, you ought also to be prepared, if you hope the Spirit of God should do great things by you or for you.

Consider 3rdly, the admirable ways and means by which St. Patrick was enabled to bring over a whole nation from their errors and vices to the faith and light of the Gospel, in spite of all the opposition of the world, the flesh, and the devil. These were, principally, his ardent zeal for the glory of God, and the salvation of souls; his profound humility; his prayer which was most fervent and continual; and the Spirit with which he delivered the word of God. This word of God in his mouth was like a fire, which breaking forth from the great furnace of divine love which possessed his own breast, communicated its bright flames to the hearts of all that heard him, and won them over to Christ; his word was mighty to break in pieces even the hardest rocks, and to bring into captivity every understanding, and every will, to the obedience of Christ. See, ye ministers of God, by this example, by what kind of arms you are to bring souls to God; see by what kind of arms you are to overcome all opposition of the enemy, and effectually to establish the reign of Christ in those souls he has committed to our charge. True zeal, profound humility, a spirit of prayer, and a heart burning with ardent charity, will more effectually enable you to convert sinners, than if you were even to raise the dead to life. See, all ye Christians in general, in this great example of our Saint, what are the principal ingredients of true sanctity, and what are the virtues and exercises that will bring you also to be Saints. The zeal, or desire of pleasing God in all things, a sincere humility, fervent prayer, and true charity in both its branches, are necessary for all: these will surely make us Saints, and nothing less than these can secure the salvation of any one.

Conclude to offer up to God, on this day, a heart full of love and gratitude for the innumerable graces and blessings bestowed upon this island through the ministry of St. Patrick, and of that long train of Saints who have descended from him. Let us never degenerate from these our parents in Christ, or forget the glorious examples of their heroic virtues. O! who shall give us to see Ireland once more an island of Saints!

Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner, Meditations for Every Day in the Year (London, 1934),  118-121.

 

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A Prayer to Saint Patrick

 The 1874 edition of The Key of Heaven which contains the Litany of Saint Patrick also has an alternative to the more commonly found novena prayer which begins 'O Blessed St. Patrick, glorious Apostle of Ireland, who didst become a friend and father to me for ages before my birth', the full text of which is available at the blog here. The alternative below is taken from a Novena approved at Rome and so I wonder if it might have come from the 1859 Novena in Honour of St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland composed by Archbishop Tobias Kirby (1803-1895), Rector of the Irish College at Rome.  I am attempting to trace this text but below is the prayer as it appeared in the 1874 edition of The Key of Heaven, attributed to the English penal era Bishop John Milner (1752-1826), but published in New York. There are numerous editions of this prayer book but this is the only one I have come across which contains this particular Prayer to Saint Patrick. Bishop Milner was well-acquainted with Ireland and defended its patron saint in his 1808 work An inquiry into certain vulgar opinions: concerning the Catholic inhabitants and the antiquities of Ireland: in a series of letters from thence, addressed to a Protestant gentleman in England. There is a list of his extensive writings available online here.

 

PRAYER TO ST. PATRICK. 

 [From the Novena, approved at Rome.] 

 GLORIOUS apostle of Ireland, St. Patrick, I beg of you to accept the poor offering which I desire to present to you, during these days, dedicated to your honor. I now offer all the good resolutions I shall make. I propose to devote myself wholly and entirely to the attainment of the end of my creation. Yes, O great Saint, I am resolved, with the divine aid, to save my soul at all hazards. Cost what it may, I am determined to effect that great object. Do you aid me, by your powerful intercession. Obtain for me your spirit of prayer; your detachment from the things of the world; your ardent love for God, and zeal for the salvation of my neighbor. Obtain for me a tender, filial, and constant devotion to the glorious Mother of God, who is our life, our sweetness, and our hope. I commend to you the Holy Catholic Church. Bring back by your prayers, to the embraces of this tender mother, all those poor souls whom error and the fraud of their infernal enemy have torn from her bosom. Convert all poor sinners to the paths of justice, by your powerful intercession. Obtain peace for all Christian people, that we all united together by the unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, may imitate your virtues in this life, and participate in your glory hereafter. Amen. 

 

Rt. Rev. J. Milner, The Key of Heaven; or, A Manual of Prayer (New York, 1874), 551-552.

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LITANY OF SAINT PATRICK. APOSTLE AND PATRON OF THE IRISH RACE.

A fine old nineteenth-century litany which I intend to pray every day during the month of March:

 

LITANY OF SAINT PATRICK. APOSTLE AND PATRON OF THE IRISH RACE. 

 LORD, have mercy on us. 

Christ, have mercy on us. 

Lord, have mercy on us. 

Christ, hear us. 

Christ, graciously hear us. 

God the Father of Heaven, Have mercy on us. 

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us. 

God the Holy Ghost, Have mercy on us. 

Holy Trinity one God, Have mercy on us. 

Holy Mary, Pray for us

Holy Mother of God, Pray for us

All ye holy Angels,  Pray for us

All ye Apostles and Evangelists, Pray for us

All ye holy Saints and Doctors, Pray for us

All ye holy Bishops and Confessors, Pray for us

St. Patrick, Apostle and Patron of Ireland, Pray for us

St. Patrick, vessel of election, Pray for us

St. Patrick, model of penitents, Pray for us

St. Patrick, example of mortification, Pray for us

St. Patrick, meek and humble, Pray for us

St. Patrick, mild and patient, Pray for us

St. Patrick, pure and temperate, Pray for us

St. Patrick, zealous pastor of souls, Pray for us

St. Patrick, ardent lover of Jesus, Pray for us

St. Patrick, singularly devoted to our Blessed Lady, Pray for us

St. Patrick, most constant in holy prayer,  Pray for us

St. Patrick, example of perfect charity, Pray for us

St. Patrick, glory of Ireland, Pray for us

St. Patrick, our powerful protector, Pray for us

St. Patrick, pillar of Catholicity, Pray for us

St. Patrick, confessor of the faith, Pray for us

 St. Patrick, herald of salvation, Pray for us

St. Patrick, our father in Christ, Pray for us

Lord Jesus, we beseech thee to hear us, 

That it would please thee through the intercession of thy servant Patrick, to make thy name glorious to all who know it not, we beseech thee to hear us,

That thou vouchsafe to preserve the Pope, and all ecclesiastical orders in religion, we beseech thee to hear us, 

That thou wilt protect our bishops and clergy, and all who labor in thy holy Church, we beseech thee to hear us, 

That thou wilt preserve and increase the faith among us, we beseech thee to hear us, 

That thou wilt enlighten all those who are in error, and bring them to the knowledge of thy truth, we beseech thee to hear us,

That thou wilt deliver us from all sin, we beseech thee to hear us,

From all pride and impurity, Deliver us, O Lord. 

From all hatred and ill-will, Deliver us, O Lord. 

From all violence and intemperance, Deliver us, O Lord.

From a sudden and unprovided death, Deliver us, O Lord. 

In the day of judgment, Deliver us, O Lord.   

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, Spare us, O Lord. 

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, Hear us, O Lord. 

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us. 

Lord, have mercy on us. 

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us. 

Pray for us, St. Patrick,

That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. 

Let us pray. 

GOD, who hast vouchsafed to send thy confessor and bishop, the blessed St. Patrick, to preach thy glory to nations, grant, by his merits and intercession, that we may accomplish in thy mercy what thou commandest to be done. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

Rt. Rev. J. Milner, The Key of Heaven; or, A Manual of Prayer (New York, 1874), 551-556.

 

 

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St Patrick: Who he was and how he was Honoured

 

To mark the feast of Saint Patrick, below is an 1894 article syndicated in the Australian press looking at our national patron and the ways in which popular devotion to him was expressed. The writer begins by mentioning historical sources the Book of Armagh and the saint's Tripartite Life, translated in 1887 by scholar Whitley Stokes. He moves on however, to the Victorian preoccupation with 'pagan survivals' attributing the practices at holy wells and other pilgrimage sites to the continuation of pagan rituals. In his view paganism, which was a unified religion stretching from Europe to parts of Africa and Asia, was able to cling on in Ireland thanks to the strength of 'druidism',  plus Ireland's curious ability to make immigrants to its shores 'suffer themselves to become more Hibernian than the Irish'. The story of Victor, 'the angel of the Scotic race' is also dismissed as 'Odinic' in character because the author feels 'sure that there is a close affinity between these fables and Teutonic mythology.' In the concluding paragraphs the writer lists sites associated with Patrician pilgrimage and describes with particular fascination the traditions of Croagh Patrick. It's clear from the air of condescension that pervades this piece that the writer belongs to a different social class and background than the people to whom these traditions belonged. Victorian antiquarian journals are filled with such articles written by gentlemen who struggled to explain traditional religious practices. Influenced by contemporary theories on pagan survivals, coupled with racial theories on the superiority of the rational Anglo-Saxon and his reformed church, they dismissed traditional Irish Catholic devotion as peasant superstition of the worst kind. Indeed, some Catholic church leaders and the Catholic gentlemen who wrote articles for the journals of their local antiquarian society themselves often struggled to understand and explain folk religion. Others, however, such as Archbishop John Healy of Tuam (1841-1918) embraced and sought to integrate traditional devotion. Archbishop Healy not only contributed a weighty tome on Saint Patrick and his writings, but he restored the Croagh Patrick pilgimage, albeit he undertook it on horseback rather than barefoot. So this article provides a fascinating snapshot in time into Victorian attitudes towards our national patron and how he was honoured. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh go léir!

 

SAINT PATRICK.

WHO HE WAS AND HOW HE WAS HONORED.

 

 

We take the following extracts from an interesting article which appeared in the Chronicle on Friday:— 

 

At Trinity College, Dublin, there exists a venerable and precious volume, the Book of Armagh —so venerable as to its date and its contents that, in the year 807. when it was transcribed in its present form, it was often obscure to the transcriber; so precious that it contains 'the oldest and most authentic notices’ of the national saint ' now in existence'—his title-deeds to credit, in fact, and the sources from which all other biographies, such as the 'Tripartite Life,’ recently translated by Dr Whitley Stokes, have been formed. In his critical preface to the latter, the last-named Irish scholar sums up what he regards as facts concerning Patrick. 

 

He was born in the latter half of the fourth century, and was reared a Christian. He had relatives in ‘the Britains’ (i.e. Great Britain) which he calls his patria. His father Calpornius, son of Potitus, was both a deacon and a decurio, and therefore belonged to a Roman colony. . . His father lived at Bannauem Taberniae, a place probably on the west coast of North Britain, and there, in his sixteenth year, Patrick was taken captive.. His captors, took him to Ireland. . where he was employed in herding sheep. . . . After six years he ran away from his master, . . . and after a three days’ voyage . .  journeyed home through a desert. A few years afterwards he dreamed that he was summoned to Ireland, and, giving up his home, his parents, and his status as a free born man, he went to preach the gospel to the Irish tribes. . . . Subsequently be travelled through ‘the Gauls,’ and Italy, and spent some time in the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea. . . . He was ordained a deacon, and, at sometime in his career, was a bishop. Almost worn out, we find him again in Ireland, travelling through the remotest parts of the country. ‘The Lord’s flock,’ he says, ‘was increasing rapidly,’ and he could not count the sons of the Scots, and the kinglet’s daughters who were becoming monks and virgins of Christ. He ordained clergy, and taught at least one priest from his infancy; but his success excited the jealousy of the rhetoricans of ‘the Gauls,’ in which country (France) he had brethren (fratres). 

 

Of the reality of the existence of this Patrick, son of Calporn, we feel not. the shadow of a doubt. But he was not the only Patrick, and, as time went on, traditions of one other Patrick at least came to be comingled with his own. We have before us the names of ten other contemporary Patricks, all ecclesiastics, and spread over Wales, Ireland, France, Spain, and Italy. The name appears to be that of a grade or order in the church, rather than a proper name in the usual sense. Thus Palladius is called also Patrick in the Book of Armagh, and the Patrick (whichever he may have been) is represented as styling Declan ‘the Patrick of the Desu,’ and Ailbhe ‘the Patrick of Munster.’ When Patrick sojourned in the cave in an island in the Tyrrhene Sea he found three other Patricks there. 

 

 The writer goes on to deal with ‘Pagan Patrick worship.’ In the name of the saint, from time immemorial, there has been a system of worship which, though accepted by Christians, was not of Christian origin. It was a part and parcel of a vast substratum of Paganism, once covering the face of Western Europe, and traceable also in the Mediterranean, in North Africa, and portions of Asia. 

 

The worship of wells with their sacred fishes; of lakes with their sunken cities, or their fabulous monsters dwelling in their depths, to which offerings of butter were made; the association of water with death and burial; the practice called the dessil or turas, of passing in circles, counted in odd numbers around a dolmen, or cairn, or a circular enclosure, the supposed bed or grave of a sacred ancestor, the crawling through cavities beneath magical rocks; the placing the hands or fingers in holes in pillar-stones and walls; the custom of offering shreds of cloth, or of hair, or of crooked pins, or of nails at some ‘blessed' spot; the turning a stone round the body for purposes of cursing or otherwise; the sacred seasons of the year; the midsummer fires; the preparations of November Eve for the visits of the dead;— all those, and countless other observances practised in the names of Patrick, or Bridget, or Declan, or some other saint, on their pattern or festival days, or at the shrines set apart for their cultus, were simply the relics of a pagan ritual, fulminated against with some effect by the edicts of kings and the Councils of the Church in Germany, France, and Spain, but with little or none in the ‘Sacred Island’ in the far north-west, where Druidism, in its most barbarous guise, held its ground secure from the onslaught of Roman legions, and where Christian missionaries, recognising, as it would seem, that assimilation of observances need not prejudice the doctrines of their faith, exercised toleration, and in common with all other immigrants to the inland shores suffered themselves to become more Hibernian than the Irish. 

 

Coming to the ‘Christian cult,’ we learn that the observances at Croagh Patrick on 15th August; at the wells of Struel, near Downpatrick, on St. John’s Eve; at Holy Island, on the Shannon, at Whitsuntide; and at Lough Derg in the late summer and autumn, are among those specially connected with Patrick. Of these the most ancient and famous pilgrimage was that to Croagh Patrick, the ‘Mecca of Ireland,' as O’Donovan called it. Hither, on the appointed day —Black Crom’s Friday—flocked devotees by thousands from all parts of the island. Previous to climbing the path loading to the apex, the pilgrims passed seven times round a pile of stones forming a rude altar, bearing the name of St. Benan. This done, they crawled to the centre, a distance of fifteen yards, on bare and bended knees, over heaps of sharp stones, blood flowing copiously the while; but here, as in all other trials, so intensely wrapt up were they in the enthusiasm which their task inspired, that all sense of pain or fatigue was deadened, even in the oldest and weakest. No cry or murmur ever escaped an Irish pilgrim’s lips. On the altar was a cross, having reached which, they hung strips of cloth to the transverse beam. On the stones, forming the altar, concentric circles arc sculptured, which, to judge from a passage in the Glossary of Cormac, were, we think, emblematical of the sun, in connection with the worship of which it would seem that the rotatory courses, or rounds, always made ‘sun-ways,’ were instituted. They next walked barefoot up the Casan Patruig, ‘over stones as sharp as oyster shells with their sharp edges upwards,’ says an eye-witness. Arrived at the summit they found themselves on the spot where, recording to the written legend, Patrick, surrounded by birds of sable hue, strove with the powers of darkness, until Victor, 'the angel of the Scotic race,’ came with his white birds to relieve and console him. In a truly Odinic passage (we feel sure that there is a close affinity between these fables and Teutonic mythology), we read that ‘it was in a bird’s shape that Victor was wont to come to Patrick,’ and that on the occasion of one visit to him near Mount Slemish, in Antrim, ‘ he left the impression of his feet’—bird’s claws, we suppose—‘in the rock.’ 

 

On the verge of the apex, the pilgrims first did honor to a stone, in which was a hollow supposed to have been made by Patrick’s knee, for, like Fin MacCumheil, whenever his knee or his hand or his crozier (with Fin it was his sword) touched a rock, the imprint of it remained in the surface. The practice was for the pilgrim to place in it his own knee, bleeding from the effect of the sharp stones over which he has crawled. Thence, once more on their knees, the devotees crawled for twenty yards to the rude stones which formed the altar of a little church called Teampull Patruig, and having paid their devotions there, walked fifteen times around it on a path which skirts the apex of the peak. Next they visited a small enclosed space resembling, a dried up well, called Patrick’s Bed, and if they had come there for a certain cure turned round seven times in it, and remained there all night. This done, the ceremony was completed by their descending the mountain by another precipitous path to a place called the Relic Mhuire, where there are three circles, each thirty yards in circumference, and going seven times in circuits round each of them, repeating at the same time, in obedience to a Christian injunction, seven aves, seven paters, and one creed, the like number of which they had repeated at each of the foregoing ‘stations,’ with the exception of that at the altar on the summit, where the number prescribed was fifteen paters, fifteen aves and one creed. Space only permits us to glance at other pilgrimages to spots connected with Patrick. At Struel, after first taking sod from Patrick’s grave at Downpatrick, on which ‘no weed would ever grow, but only grass and shamrock,’ the principal object of adoration was a well, which, precisely at 12 o’clock in the night of Midsummer Eve, poured forth a double volume of water, and was reputed to effect most miraculous cures. To climb a hill bare-kneed, and to be 'turned’ in a rude seat, formed of natural rocks, called ‘Patrick’s Chair,’ formed also a part of the observances at this latter place. The most remarkable, perhaps, of all the Irish pilgrimages was that to St. Declan’s, in the county Waterford, whence the penance consisted in crawling through a cavity beneath a rock on the seashore, said to have been wafted thither miraculously over the sea with the saint’s bell upon it.

 

Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 - 1924), Friday 23 March 1894, page 1

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Saint Patrick's Confessions

Bringing the series of posts in honour of Saint Patrick to a close on the octave of his feast day with another Australian newspaper offering, an 1884 article quoting his Confession, although the writer refers to Confessions in the plural. I have always found it a truly wonderful thing that we are able to hear the voice of our patron saint, 'a unique voice from the dawn of Irish history' as one modern scholar puts it, through his own writings. As Philip Freeman notes in his 2005 book Saint Patrick of Ireland - a Biography:

Patrick's letters were restricted to those who read Latin until the nineteenth century, when the first English translations appeared. In the last hundred years more than a dozen editions of the letters have been published. In spite of this proliferation, the writings of Patrick are poorly known to this day. Everyone has heard of Saint Patrick, of course, but the man most people know is little more than an icon who drove the snakes out of Ireland. This lack of knowledge about the real Patrick is truly regrettable, because he has such an amazing story to tell: a tale of slavery and brutality, pain and self-doubt, sorrow and constant struggle, but ultimately of perseverance, hope and faith. His letters, in the end, remain as a remarkable gift from an extraordinary man.

 Let's hope that in the twenty-first century we too can begin to rediscover and truly appreciate this remarkable gift:

SAINT PATRICK'S CONFESSIONS.

Some years before his death, St. Patrick, the Irish apostle, wrote his confessions. The following extracts from this invaluable document will show the state of the writer's mind, and the spirit in which he left the world :— 

"You know," says he to the Irish people, "and God knows, what kind of behaviour I have had with you from my youth, in the belief of the truth, and in the sincerity of my heart. Moreover, in every province where I have been, I have made known my faith unto the people, and will make it known. God knows that I have defrauded none of them, nor have I stirred up any one against them through all our persecutions, lest on my account the name of the Lord might be blasphemed. When I had baptized so many thousands of the people, I might, perhaps, have expected from some of them a small compensation. Tell me if I have received aught, and I will pay it back. Or when I have ordained ministers, if I have asked from any of them even the price of a pair of shoes, tell me, and I will return to you more than I have received. And now I recommend my soul to God, who faithful, for Whom, in reproach, I have performed this mission. I pray God that He may give unto me perseverance, that I may bear for Him a faithful testimony until my transition to my God. This sun which we now see, by the help of God will rise for us every day; but he will never reign, neither will his splendor be lasting. But we believe in the worship of the true Sun, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who will never pass away; Who made all things by His own will, and shall remain for ever. He reigns with God the Father Omnipotent, and with the Holy Spirit, before the worlds were, now, and will reign through all ages of ages. Amen."
 

SAINT PATRICK'S CONFESSIONS, South Australian Weekly Chronicle, April 19, 1884.

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Saint Patrick's Staff of Jesus

In 2018 I posted a series of posts on one of the most famous of all of the relics associated with Saint Patrick - the Bachall Ísu (Íosa), or Staff of Jesus. Below is a reminder of the story of how the Irish patron came to acquire Christ's staff, published in the American journal The Pilgrim of Our Lady of Martyrs in 1889:

 

ST PATRICK'S STAFF OF JESUS.

WHEN the young St. Patrick escaped to Gaul after his second term of captivity in Ireland, he heard in spirit the Irish people crying to him from the woods of Tirawley, in Mayo: " "We beseech thee, holy youth, to come and walk amongst us and set us free."

Come, holy one, long preordained!

For thee the swans of Lir are singing;

Come from the morning, orient-stained,

Thy Mass-bell thro' our valleys ringing.

Man of the hooded hosts, arise!

Physician, lo! our souls lie dying —

Hear o'er the seas our piteous cries,

On thee and on thy God relying.  [1]

Moved by their spiritual wants, the devout youth at once began his studies to prepare himself for holy orders.

In the course of these studies, St. Patrick travelled much in France and Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean. He stopped longest, perhaps, at the noble monastery of Lerins, shortly after the death of its founder, the great St. Honoratus,  and here he received his celebrated "Staff of Jesus."

He had had a vision in which an angel told him to repair to this island, and visit a holy recluse named Justus who was living there — doubtless the same as the Bishop Justus who assisted at the Synod of Arles in 450. St. Patrick eagerly sought him out, and noticed, by the way, that in a certain part of the island lived a number of devout men, some of whom were in the bloom of health while others were quite old and decrepit. Justus, he learned, had formerly been the leader of these men, but for some years latterly had retired apart for greater security in his heavenly meditations.

"Hail, servant of God!" exclaimed St. Patrick, on finally meeting the hermit at the door of his cell; "the peace of Christ be with thee!"

For a moment Justus looked astonished, and then, raising his hands in joy to heaven, cried: " Thanks be to God! Thou art Patrick, a messenger of Jesus Christ. Long, long have I awaited thy coming."

The two Saints spent some hours in spiritual conversation, hardly noticing the flight of time, so wrapt were they in God, when the deep shadows of evening began to fall about them. Hereupon Justus arose and begged St. Patrick to enter his cell and join him in his repast of cool spring-water and bread seasoned with a few small herbs.

"But stay, good brother," said St. Patrick ; "who has told thee my name ?"

"As we take our meal, I will tell thee," answered Justus, and as soon as they were seated he told him this story:

"My brethren whom you have seen," he said, "and I were from our youth, which was many, many years ago, devoted to works of charity. Our doors were always open, and no stranger sought our help in the name of Christ and went his way unaided. So it fell out, one night, that a footsore pilgrim asked us for food and shelter. He bore a long staff in his hand, and seemed to have come a long journey. We received him with warmest hospitality, putting him no curious questions and giving him the best that our means afforded.

"He seemed grateful, and on the morrow arose with a smiling face to depart; but, as we gathered round him to bid him adieu, a sudden transformation came over him. His garments turned white as snow, and his face radiant, though softer than the sun. A heavenly fragrance was diffused about him. We gazed at him only once, awe-stricken, and fell upon our knees in adoration. It was Christ Jesus whom we had sheltered.

" 'Fear not,' He said in the gentlest accents, you have received your God in person this time, to reward you for the thousand times you received the poor and the sick and the tired in His name. And thou, Justus,' He said, bending over me, receive My staff and keep it till, after long years from now, there come to thee a pious pilgrim named Patrick. Give it to him, for he shall have a mighty mission to perform for Me.' So saying, our Lord ascended into the clouds before us. Ever since that day, we have retained our youthfulness and vigour, while our children who then were only infants have grown decrepit with age. As soon as I saw thee, my brother, I knew that thou wast Patrick, and, lo! I fetch thee thy staff."

St. Patrick humbly knelt to receive the heavenly gift, which he regarded as a divine symbol of his call to preach the faith in Ireland. After lingering some days with Justus, he set out to throw himself at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, St. Celestine I.

Many were the miracles wrought by the sacred staff, and even the great St. Bernard tells us, in his life of St. Malachy, that in his own day it was held in highest esteem by the Irish as a venerable relic of their Apostle. A charter of Henry III., now preserved in the British Museum, confers "a Knight's Fee, at Inistioge, on John Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, for guardianship of the Staff of Jesus."

But by and by thieves broke into the fold of Christ. The precious relics of Irish faith fared ill at their hands, and Browne, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, impiously ordered the sacred Staff of Jesus to be publicly burned with many other relics in High Street.

[1] From Thomas Darcy M'Gee's St. Patrick's Dream. 

The Pilgrim Of OurLady Of Martyrs, Vol. V, 1889, 79-81.

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Saint Patrick's Ink

As an old-school researcher I write out all my notes for the blog in longhand using a fountain pen and rather enjoy experimenting with different types and colours of ink. I was therefore pleased to find the following 1895 article with the intriguing title of 'Saint Patrick's Ink'. It pays tribute to the skill of those monastic scribes and scholars who produced the Irish illuminated manuscripts. The article is taken from the newspaper collection of the National Library of Australia, whose online TROVE resource is indeed well-named:

SAINT PATRICK'S INK.

It is impossible to read the most ancient histories of the Irish saints without noticing how large a part books play in their lives.

In the library some cut the sheets of parchment, or even sewed together in the neatest way the odd shreds, for the monk must not waste the gifts of God, especially when they are rare and dear. They polished it on one side until it was smooth and laid it near the scribe. Others prepared the peculiar thick inks of the Irish writers, very much like varnish, in different colours. The red was the most beautiful, and after one thousand years it yet shines as the day it was first used. It was got from a kind of cockles collected on the seashore. Then there were black and green and golden inks, used in various thicknesses by the illuminators and the artists in miniature.

All these inks will resist chemicals that corrode iron. The ink was placed in thin, conic glasses attached either to the side of the desk or to the chair, sometimes to the girdle of the writer, often fixed to the end of a pointed stick placed upright in the ground, it is owing to this peculiar skill in making ink that so many of the old Irish manuscripts nave come down to us. They were like the cloth of corduroy — unless cut or burned up they were bound to last for ages — and are an eloquent symbol of that tenacious love of learning and that unquenchable faith which the hand of Patrick wrote in characters ineradicable on the very soul, in the very blood and innermost marrow of the Irish race.
 

"SAINT PATRICK'S INK." Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic. : 1855 - 1955) 16 February 1895: 1 (The Ovens and Murray Advertiser Supplement). <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201547035>.

 

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Hymn to Saint Patrick

Another stirring patriotic hymn to Saint Patrick, this time from 1884. The author was the then vice-president of Thurles College, an institution first established as a school in 1837 but which later became a seminary. It is still in existence today as Mary Immaculate College and the campus retains many of its splendid nineteenth-century buildings. It is obvious from Father Arthur Ryan's hymn that he is writing in the heady days of the Irish national revival. Saint Patrick is referred to as a 'patriot saint' who champions faith and fatherland and has stood by the Irish people as they battled for their freedom. It may be that in his sense that 'morn is breaking', the author is anticipating the First Home Rule Bill of 1886 and he ends with a prayer that free from the chains of sin, he may be laid in 'a freeman's grave', an aspiration with a political as well as a spiritual dimension:

HYMN TO ST. PATRICK.

THE following beautiful hymn, from the pen of the Rev. A. Ryan, vice-president , The College, Thurles, is taken from his lately published novena to St. Patrick :—

Hail, glorious saint of Ireland! We,
Thy children, raise our song to thee;
Defend our land, and make her free
From sin and Satan's tyranny.

Defend thy sons from every foe;

Strike thou, O patriot saint! the blow 

For faith and fatherland; and woe

To all who seek their overthrow!

As reptiles fled thy staff before, 

May viperous discords flee our shore, 

And strife and folly join no more 

To wreck our hope and rob our store. 

In the darkest night, by tempests torn, 

The bark of Erin rode forlorn: 

Then wert thou by, to cheer and warn; 

Now, lo! the radiance of the morn. 

 

Yes, morn is breaking, father dear — 

The Eastern skies are bright and clear; 

Thou wert our star through midnight drear, 

In noontide's peril still be near. 

 

Be near to guide the patriot's hand, 

Be near to make our people stand 

A fearless, true, united band. 

For freedom, faith, and fatherland. 

 

Oh! guard our Irish loyalty  

To all that's justly, nobly free, 

To powers that rule by God's decree, 

To Church, to country, and to thee. 

 

Saint Patrick, may thy banner wave 

Triumphant o'er the enfranchised slave; 

From chains of sin thy suppliant save, 

And lay me in a freeman's grave. Amen.

HYMN TO ST. PATRICK.,New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 7, 6 June 1884

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Of Irish Interest: Hymn to St Patrick

Although in recent days I have been looking at the grave site of Saint Patrick in Down, the cause of our national apostle has always been championed by Armagh, Ireland's seat of ecclesiastical authority. The city's historic Saint Patrick's cathedral was appropriated by the new state church at the time of the Reformation, so it was not until after Catholic Emancipation was achieved in 1829 that the building of a Catholic cathedral could commence. The foundation stone was laid on Saint Patrick's Day in 1840 and work continued until 1873 when the cathedral was dedicated and opened. Michael, Cardinal Logue (1887-1924), continued work on the interior of the building, which was rededicated and reopened in 1904, and below is the text of a hymn which was sung on that occasion. It was published in the American Catholic newspaper The Sacred Heart Review in its 'Of Irish interest' column aimed at the large expatriate community of Boston. The sentiments of the hymn mirror those of similar compositions of the time, and interestingly this one was also translated into Irish:

 

Of Irish Interest.

HYMN TO ST. PATRICK.

A notable feature of the exercises incident to the rededication and reopening of the Armagh Cathedral, the other day, was the "Hymn to St. Patrick" originally written by the Rev. G. O'Neill, S. J., and translated into Irish by Tadhg O'Donoghue. The Irish words were sung in unison by the choir, the tune being an ancient Irish air of extreme beauty which had been adapted to them, and which fitted the hymn as happily as if they had been composed for each other. The Hymn in English is as follows; —

Dear Apostle, blessed Patrick, faithful lover of our land; 

Thou so tender in compassion, in thy fortitude so grand, 

See thy children gathered round thee, let thy heart be opened wide 

To the voice of their appealing; be our father and our guide. 

 

At thy word the pagan island blossomed red and blossomed white,
As a garden of God's pleasure, in the dawning of the light; 

And the evil spirits fleeing from each holy rite and prayer 

Left to Jesus and to Mary evermore that land so fair. 

 

Blessed Patron, make us faithful, as thy martyr sons of old; 

Loving still the Church, our Mother, with an ardent love and bold. 

Make us wise to battle Satan in his cunning and his might; 

Give us strength to conquer sorrow, give the scorn of base delight. 

 

O  console our drooping courage, as we battle day by day 

'Gainst the world and its beguiling and our hearts that still betray; 

Let thy prayer, on earth so mighty, be our aid till peril cease, 

Till we hail thee in the gladness of the everlasting peace!

The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 32, Number 7, 13 August 1904, p.13.

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Saint Patrick's Grave

Following yesterday's 1882 newspaper article lamenting the sorry state of the reputed grave of Saint Patrick at Downpatrick, County Down, today we have a description of the restored site as unveiled in 1900. The project was spearheaded by Belfast Presbyterian solicitor and leading Celtic Revivalist, Francis Joseph Bigger (1863-1926). We can see the influence of the Celtic Revival in Bigger's choice of inscription and of the cross. Why he chose a cross from Lough Ree, on the Shannon, is unclear to me, as is his decision to carve the name of Patric alone and omit his fellow Irish patrons Saint Brigid and Saint Colum Cille. For the tradition was that all three of the Irish patrons shared a common grave. Doubtless those visitors who came to the spot read in their guidebooks the rhyme 'Three saints in Down one grave do fill, Patrick, Brigid and Colum Cille' but now it was Patrick alone who would be remembered at the site. The renovations of 1900 were certainly an improvement on what had gone before but below is a picture of the grave as it looks today, with a tarmac walkway and a cobblestone border.

ST. PATRICK'S GRAVE.
 

To all Irishmen, both at Home and abroad, it will be of interest (says the Irish Weekly) to hear that the reputed grave of St. Patrick in the Cathedral yard at Downpatrick has been put in order, and marked with a lasting memorial placed there after much thought and at considerable expense. It is unique of its class, and will be another distinctively attractive feature to the many remarkable historical remains in the immediate vicinity of Downpatrick. Visitors to the spot will not be shocked to find the site of the grave marked only by a few broken stones and a rugged hole scraped in the earth with nothing distinctive to record the name of him who did so much to spread Christianity throughout the land, and whose remains are believed to be here interred The memorial stone is a rough weather-broken boulder of granite weighing about seven tons, taken from the mountain side of Slieve-na-Largie, near Castlewellan, where it rested at a height of 600 feet above the sea. Upon the upper surface of this boulder has been incised an Irish cross, faithfully reproduced from one cut on an equally rough, unhewn stone found on Inisclearaun, one of the islands of Lough Ree, on the Shannon, and not far from Clonmaonoise. Here St. Dairmid founded big famous ecclesiastical settlement about the middle of the sixth century. The name 'Patric' has also been cut in Irish characters copied from the earliest known Celtic manuscripts. This simple, but massive, treatment is considered to be a near approach to the form of a grave slab, which would have been used about the fifth century— the date of the Saint's death. The movement for the erection of the monument was initiated by the editor of The Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Belfast. The supervision of the work was entrusted to Mr. W. F. Fennel, M.R.I.A., architect, and excellently carried out by the Messrs. Hastings, of Downpatrick, who also so carefully restored the ancient town cross of Downpatrick, under the same auspices, a few years ago.


ST. PATRICK'S GRAVE.,New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 23, 7 June 1900

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The Grave of Saint Patrick

 

Last night on Radio Maria Ireland's show 'All the Saints of Ireland' I looked at the question of where Saint Patrick was laid to rest. Downpatrick, County Down emerged as the only place with an actual reputed burial site to which a visitor could be pointed. As I explained on the show, by the nineteenth century there was a lot of muttering about the shabby state of the grave, a sentiment reflected in the 1882 article below, syndicated in a New Zealand newspaper from The Cork Examiner. By this time the railways had reached Downpatrick making travel easier and encouraging the beginnings of tourism. Victorian visitors went armed with their guidebooks, anxious to see what historical curiosities their destinations offered, so it must have been something of a disappointment to read of Downpatrick's rich Patrician associations only to be be confronted with the reality of this unprepossessing grave site where not just Saint Patrick but his two co-patrons, Saints Brigid and Colum Cille, were said to rest. To make matters worse, the historic market cross which marked the grave was destroyed in a mindless act of vandalism. So, the picture of the grave site by the early 1880s is bleak indeed, but tomorrow we will have another newspaper article which describes how things changed dramatically twenty years later:

THE GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK. (From the Cork Examiner.)

AWAY in the far north, in the quaint little graveyard of the Cathedral Church of Down, lies the grave of St. Patrick. In the Saint's lifetime called Dun-de-leth Glaiste, the town in which the honoured remains were interred became known as Downpatrick. This ancient borough has been singularly privileged in Irish ecclesiastical history in having not less than three saints interred in its old and venerable cathedral churchyard, the ancient chronicle tolling us that —

"One grave in Down three saints do fill—Patrick, Bridget and Columbkille."

For centuries, and even up to the present day, the shrine of our patron saint and of his great fellow-labourers in the cause of Irish evangelization, has been annually visited by hundreds of pious pilgrims, the tradition of the neighbourhood affirming that miraculous cures of physical ailments have been obtained by helpless sufferers. In the "Life of St. Patrick" written by the Nun of Kenmare, we find it stated that when the Patron Saint died at Saul (a little village lying a couple of miles eastward of Downpatrick, on the shore of Strangford Lough), in the year 465, a dispute arose between his followers as to which of the two places his remains should be removed to. It was known that the Saint's wishes pointed in the direction of Armagh; but, anxious to prevent dissension among his disciples over his remains, and unwilling to express a decided preference for either place, he gave instructions for bis funeral to the effect, that when his body was removed for interment it should be placed on a bier drawn by two young bullocks which should be permitted to go without hindrance or guidance in whatever direction they chose, and that wherever the bullocks should stop, there his remains should be buried. The bullocks stopped at Dun-de-leth Glaiste, where his place of sepulture was accordingly made. Close beside, stands the Cathedral Church of Down, one of the most venerable ecclesiastical structures in Ireland, and nearly opposite the southern side of the Cathedral tower, on the highest part of the old burial-ground (which in itself forms a hill), is the grave of St. Patrick. To a stranger, the first look begets disappointment. Instead of a jealously-guarded crypt or tomb, worthy even in a small degree of the great Apostle, the eye rests on a flat green sod, 7 feet long by 7 feet wide, with a hole at the east end, 20 inches square by 8 inches deep, which, from the veneration of the Saint and by a continuation of visitors, is rapidly developing into much larger proportions. Up to the year 1846 a magnificent Irish stone cross, dating from centuries before, stood at the head of the Saint's grave, and was a source of pride to the inhabitants of Downpatrick, as well as of interest to visitors; but in that year a band of vandals, at the dead hour of night, dragged the sacred emblem from the grave of the Saint, and, conveying it a short distance, deposited it with ignominy in the common town drain. The indignation of the inhabitants was profound, and on the action of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, who at once offered a reward for its discovery, the violated Celtic stone cross was restored to its place at the head of St. Patrick's grave. Again it was stolen, doubtless in the hope of obtaining further reward; but on that occasion it was unfortunately smashed into many fragments, and being after a time recovered, they were placed beyond reach of future sacrilege, by the Dean and Chapter, in the east end of the cathedral. And so the grave remains unmarked by brass, or stone, or monumental urn. . . . Indeed, the grave itself would have been ere now in much worse condition than it is, were it not for the thoughtfulness which has, for many years past, prompted Mr. Robert H. Bell, a native of Downpatrick, to bestow some gratuitous attention upon it.

THE GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK. (From the Cork Examiner.),New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 476, 26 May 1882

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