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March 15, 2004

St Patrick is a Gloucestershire lad ....

An Irish researcher has recently published a very well researched book which is today being publicised on the local radio stations - it may have some connection with the fact that the Cheltenham Festival and Gold Cup horse racing is on and the place is overrun by the Irish horse racing fraternity - which suggests that the great Celtic Saint was from the Severn Vale. I doubt that we will see a massive influx of pilgrims from this news - if indeed it becomes widely accepted. The fact is that there have been several claimants to the origins of this remarkable saint, including Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria. Even the Strathclyde region has made some noises on this.

Personal prejudice for my region aside, I do believe that the Severn Vale and what is today Gloucestershire is probably the strongest claimant. My main reason for this is that it was a thriving centre of Romano-British culture until well beyond the collapse of Roman control in the East, and is littered with the remains of Roman "Villas". Almost everywhere you go in the County, you find traces of Roman occupation and almost all the "great church" foundations go back to Roman times in terms of siting if not in actual occupation. Thus, Gloucester Cathedral is built over the remains of the Roman Bassilica and there is evidence of Christian activity from that period. At Bourton on the Water, the Church there - of 19th Century reconstruction now - occupies a site that once held a pagan shrine, but was Christian from around the date that Patrick was born. This was lost and then regained as successive invaders moved in between 600 and 1000 AD. Certainly the other "great" church site, Tewkesbury, has been used for religious purposes from Roman times and certainly Christian from around 700 AD.

Patrick lived between around 400 and 461 AD, a time when Romano-British culture was certainly at its height and just beginning the decline triggered by the collapse of Roman government in Gaul and Western Europe. He is reported - from his own "Confessio" ( an autobiographical work, believed to be authentic as it discusses events and details only he would have been familiar with in reality) and his familiarity with the politics of the region (he wrote a letter to "King" Caracticus who was a Romano-British governor based in South Wales) - to have been born into a Christian family, his Grandfather a priest and his father a Deacon, and raised in this tradition until captured by Irish raiders and sold into slavery around the age of 14.

Putting aside the legends and reading his own works reveals a fascinating man, of deep conviction, as different from his legends as chalk from cheese. A man of faith, who heard a call and answered it, founding in the process a church which not only survived but flourished in the isolated and dangerous world of the Viking raids and stormy politics of the age. His example has given us a clutch of truly remarkable men, including Aidan, Cuthbert, Brendan and many more. He was an inspiration in his own age to many - hence his success - and this is what has fueled the legends. He is still an inspiration, if one is prepared to get to know the real man behind the legend.

His feast day is this Wednesday and there will be many parades, parties and other festivals to mark it around the world. He would probably have been astonished by it all, and probably somewhat disturbed because he was above all a very modest man, modest in his faith, modest in his behaviour and modest about his own accomplishments. He was also a very determined man, once he had decided on a course of action.

I will be marking his feast, probably modestly, but in real admiration for what this truly "quiet" but determined man achieved from such an inauspicious beginning.

Posted by The Gray Monk at March 15, 2004 10:43 AM

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The Gray Monk points out that today is the day to celebrate a local lad from Gloucestershire. And I am sure they will at the Cheltenham race course - maybe I should go, but the upper forty needs discing..... [Read More]

Tracked on March 17, 2004 08:17 AM