Stephen Lucius Gwynn

Patrick, by birth a Briton (almost certainly of Wales), was a Roman born in the same sense as St. Paul; his father was an official of the Empire; and from his father’s house he was carried into captivity by these outer barbarians of Ireland. In his captivity he found his mission, escaped, with the fixed design to prepare himself for it, and spent thirty years on that preparation before, in 432, he came back to make captivity captive. He touched at a port in south-eastern Ireland—probably Wicklow—but stood on with his vessel, coasting past Dublin Bay till he landed again for water and provisions at the little island of Skerries, which since then is called Inishpatrick.

Still north he sailed, up to Strangford Lough, where, landing, he made his first convert, the chief Dichu, and founded his first church—Down Patrick—where many years later he returned to die. Here for a time he sojourned. Before he turned south there was an errand he had to do, to bring his message to the valley of the Braid, in Antrim, where he had been a captive, herding swine on the slopes of Slemish. But at last, in the spring of 433, he set his face to the very core and centre of his purpose—the evangelization of Ireland at the fountain head of pagan civilization and pagan power. For the success of Patrick’s mission lay in this. He addressed himself to the chiefs, he bearded the pagan in his strong places: he won those who carried others with them.