PATRICK, ST., the patron saint of Ireland,' was probably born about the year 389. He was the son of a deacon, Calpurnius, and the grandson of a presbyter named Potitus. His father was a middle-class landed proprietor and a decurion, who is represented as living at a place called Bannauenta. The only place of this name we know is Daventry, but it seems more probable that Patrick's home is to be sought near the Severn, and Rhys con jectures that one of the three places called Banwen in Glamorgan shire may be intended. The British name of the future apostle was Sucat, to which Mod. Welsh hygad, "warlike," corresponds. His Roman name has also survived in a Hibernicized form, Cothrige, with the common substitution of Irish c for Brythonic p. (Cf . Irish casc, Lat. pascha.) Patrick was doubtless educated as a Christian and was imbued with reverence for the Roman Empire. When about sixteen years of age he was carried off by a band of Irish marauders. The latter were possibly taking part in the raid of the Irish king Niall Noigiallach, who met with his end in Britain in 405. Irish tradition represents the future apostle as tending the herds of a chieftain of the name of Miliucc (Milchu), near the mountain called Slemish in county Antrim, but Bury tries to show that the scene of his captivity was Connaught, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Croagh Patrick.
His bondage lasted for six years. During this time he became subject to religious emotion and beheld visions which encouraged him to effect his escape. He fled, in all probability to the coast of Wicklow, and encountered a vessel which was engaged in the export of Irish wolf-dogs. After three days at sea the traders landed, possibly on the west coast of Gaul, and journeyed for twenty-eight days through a desert. At the end of two months Patrick parted from his companions and betook himself to the monastery of Lerins, where he probably spent a few years. On leaving the Mediterranean he seems to have returned home. It was doubtless during this stay in Britain that the idea of mission ary enterprise in Ireland came to him. In a dream he saw a man named Victorious bearing innumerable epistles, one of which he received and read ; the beginning of it contained the words "The Voice of the Irish"; whilst repeating these words he says, "I imagined that I heard in my mind the voice of those who were near the wood of Foclut (Fochlad), which is near the western sea, and thus they cried : 'We pray thee, holy youth, to come and walk again amongst us as before.' " The forest of Fochlad was in the
neighbourhood of Killala Bay, but it is possible that it extended considerably to the south. Despite his natural diffidence, and oppo sition on the part of his relatives, Patrick resolved to return to Gaul in order to prepare himself for his mission. He proceeded to Auxerre—a place which seems to have had a close connection with Britain and Ireland—and was ordained deacon by Bishop Amator, along with two others who were afterwards associated with him in spreading the faith in Ireland. The one was an Irish man called Fith, better known as Iserninus, the other Auxilius. Patrick must have spent at least fourteen years at Auxerre.