h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I always believed it was the opposite, the British became Romanised, not the other way around. Although, 200 years after the peak of the Roman Empire, British might have been making a comeback.

Who knows, what was happening 1500 years ago. A lot of it is speculation anyway.

Indeed.

Mt. Slemish must be the English version of the mountain's name. We always knew it as Sliabh Mish (Sliabh being the Irish word mountain). Strange that even in English we use the Irish form.

As this is meant to be a guide I though I'd better use the name on the OS map so that people will be able to find it.

Just came across yet another theory: born in Kilpatrick, Scotland (isn't that convenient, born in a town named after him? ), and was kidnapped by Irish raiders at 16. This begs the question, where did he learn Christianity? Scotland was never conquered by Rome, and Ireland was never bothered with.

So far we've batted around quite a few theories, but I still like mine best, because it seems to fit the profile better than any I've seen since. But, in the total absence of anything remotely resembling concrete evidence, feel free to choose a favorite of your own.

The way we learnt it (dredging up stories from Primary school here) is that God spoke to him when he was on the mountain (as happens all the time!) and I think that after he got back to wherever home was and heard the children of Ireland calling to him, he then went to France or somewhere and became a priest and then a bishop before going back to Ireland. Cheek of him for making us wait I say

As for the Kilpatrick idea, it's more likely that he went there after, as Kilpatrick is the anglicised version of Cill Phadraig (the Irish/Gaelic for "The Church of Patrick")

Patrick didn't have a Gaelic name. His name was of Latin origin. whether a Gaelic version developed later is a different matter. He may have been called Padrig, the Brythonic (now Welsh) version of the name.

Patrick's place of birth is not known exactly. but . He is supposed to have been born in 'Banaventum Tabernae'. I am guessing at the selling because I obtained this verbally from a historian. Some suggest that the '-ventum' part suggests Gwent in South-East Wales although I have even heard 'Banwen' in West Glamorgan suggested. No-one knows for sure. He is believed to have been 'British' but
in modern terms this means he could have been born in Wales, Western England, Western Scotland or (at a pinch) Brittany.
Wales seems a reasonable guess as (a) it's closest! (b) it contained strong bastions of Christianity and a number of Christian colleges at a time when Christianity was quite weak throughout what is now England and Scotland (c) tradition says he was from there.

Hello.

Just popped over from Collective...

As ever with conversations of this nature there is an awful lot of mixed up time lines and nomenculture (oh get me with the big words!)

Right, at the time of Patricks birth there was no England, Wales or Scotland - these terms and sub-divisions came later.

He was a Romano-Briton living in the Roman province of Britain. this doesn't mean he was Roman in the sense of having been born in Rome but that he and his forebears simply lived as Romans.

As for him being "welsh" - what does "welsh" mean?

In modern terms it simply means someone from Wales. However it comes from the name that germanic invaders who later collectively would become "the english" called the romanised inhabitants of Britain - namely Wealhas, Wealisc or Walla (there were probably different dialect words for each group - e.g. jutes, frisians, saxons, angles etc). This eventually became "Welsh". And as these peoples were pushed westwards the area they came to live in (or the area which retained the "celtic" identity at least ) became known in English as Wales.

Similarly the native peoples had names for the invaders "saisneg" in welsh and "sassanach" in gaelic and "sawsnak" in cornish. They all mean "saxon" or "english". They also had a name for themselves COMBROGI which has mutated and servives today in the names Cymru, Cumbria and in place names like Cumbernauld etc

Erm....has that cleared anything up?!!