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 in those days to make, though now a port diligently avoided by them. Wicklow head offers shelter along a coast singularly destitute of harbours of refuge. The Danes three centuries later learned its advantage, and founded a settlement there, whence the modern name of Wicklow. The nature of the harbour was attractive to navigators like Palladius and Patrick. Its strand and murrough, or common, extending some miles N. from the Vartry, offered special opportunities for dragging up the small ships then used. St. Patrick was received in a very hostile manner by the pagans of Wicklow on landing. A shower of stones greeted them, and knocked out the front teeth of one of his companions, St. Mantan, whence the Irish name of Wicklow, Killmantan, or Church of Mantan (Joyce's Irish Names, p. 103; Colgan, AA. SS. p. 451; Reeves's Antiquities, p. 378). St. Patrick then sailed N., compelled with true missionary spirit to seek first of all that locality where he had spent seven years of his youth and had learned the language and customs of the Irish. We can still trace his stopping-places. Dublin only existed in those days as a small village beside a ford or bridge of hurdles over the Liffey, serving as a crossing-place for the great S.E. road from Tara to Wicklow, a bridge, like those still found in the bogs of Ireland, composed of branches woven together, which serve to sustain very considerable weights. St. Patrick landed, according to Tirechan, at an island off the N. coast of co. Dublin, still called Inispatrick (in 7th cent. Insula Patricii), whence he sailed to the coast of co. Down, where his frail bark was stopped by the formidable race off the mouth of Strangford Lough. He sailed up this lough, which extends for miles into the heart of co. Down, and landed at the mouth of the Slaney, which flows into the upper waters of the Lough, within a few miles of the church of Saul, a spot successfully identified by Mr. J. W. Hanna in a paper on the "True Landing-place of St. Patrick in Ulster" (Downpatrick, 1858). There he made his first convert Dichu, the local chief, and founded his first church in a barn which Dichu gave him, whence the name Sabhall (Celtic for barn) or Saul, which has ever since continued to be a Christian place of worship (cf. Reeves, Antiq. pp. 40, 220). From Dichu he soon directed his steps towards Central Antrim and king Milchu's residence, where he had spent the days of his captivity. His fame had reached Milchu, whose Druids warned him that his former servant would triumph over him. So Milchu set fire to all his household goods and perished in their midst just as St. Patrick appeared. St. Patrick now ( 433), determining to strike a blow at the very centre of Celtic paganism, directed his course towards Tara. He sailed to the mouth of the Boyne, where, as the Book of Armagh tells us, he laid up his boats, as to this day it is impossible for the smallest boats to sail up the Boyne between Drogheda and Navan. Patrick proceeded along the N. bank of the river to the hill of Slane, the loftiest elevation in the country, dominating the vast plain of Meath. The ancient Life in the Book of Armagh is here marked by touches of geographical exactness which guarantee its truth. Being determined to celebrate Easter on the hill of Slane, he, according to the custom of the early Christians, lit his Paschal fire on Easter Eve, a custom which we know from other sources was universal at that time (cf. Martene, de Antiq. Ritib. t. iii. lib. iv. c. 24, pp. 144, 145, and arts. on " Easter, Ceremonies of," and "Fire, Kindling of," in D. C. A.).

This fire was at once seen on Tara, where the king of Ireland, Laoghaire, was holding a convention of the chiefs of Ireland. The ritual of the convention demanded that no fire should be lit in his dominions on this night till the king's fire was lit on Tara. St. Patrick's act directly challenged the edict of the king, who proceeded to Slane to punish the bold aggressor. The narrative of the conflict between St. Patrick and king Laoghaire and his priests is marked by a series of miracles and legends, terminating, however, with the defeat of paganism and the baptism of great numbers of the Irish, including Laoghaire himself, who yielded a nominal adhesion to the truth. (See Mr. Petrie's great work on the Hill of Tara, where the subject has been exhaustively discussed.)

The Paschal controversy, about which Cummian wrote ( 634), throws an interesting light upon the date of the introduction of Christianity into Ireland. The Irish have been accused of Quartodeciman practices as to Easter, which is quite a mistake. They simply adhered to the old Roman cycle, which was superseded in 463 by the Victorian cycle. ["Easter," in D. C. A. vol. i. p. 594.] The invasions of the barbarians then cut off the Celtic church from a knowledge of the more modern improvements in the calendar, which they afterwards resisted with a horror natural to simple people. The English surplice riots of bp. Blomfield's time shew how a much shorter tradition may raise a popular commotion. This fixes the introduction of Christianity into Ireland in the first half of 5th cent. The alleged connexion of the Irish church with Egypt and the East, as shewn in art, literature, architecture, episcopal and monastic arrangements, would afford material for an interesting article on the peculiarities of the Irish church. (See Butler's Coptic Churches of Egypt, Oxf. 1885.)

See Sir Samuel Fergusson's treatise on the Patrician Documents in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy (Dec. 1885), and Benjamin Robert's Etude critique sur la vie de St. Patrice (Paris, 1883), where a diligent use has been made of modern authorities, and, pp. 3–7, a convenient summary given of the literature. A cheap popular Life by E. J. Newell is pub. by S.P.C.K. in their Fathers for Eng. Readers, who also pub. the ''Epp. and Hymns, including the poem of Secundinus in his praise'', in Eng. ed. by T. Olden. Cf. esp. The Tripartite Life of Patrick, with other documents, etc., by Whitley Stokes in Rolls Series, No. 89, 2 vols. (Lond. 1887); also W. Bright, The Roman See in the Early Church, pp. 367–385 (Lond. 1896).

[G.T.S.]

Patrocius (2) (St. Parre), Jan. 21, a martyr supposed to have suffered under Aurelian, and commemorated by Greg. Turon. ''Glor. Mart.'' c. 64. His Acts are fully told by the Bolland-