42 Gossipings about the Parish of Saul. 



fragments of stone, which I picked up a few years ago in the 

 Parish of Saul, County Down. I have brought them here with 

 me this evening for your acceptance, and shall feel amply 

 rewarded if you will do me the honour to find them a resting- 

 place in this home of security. I am afraid I cannot trust 

 myself to give an accurate description of them, but feel confident 

 that any technical omission on my part will be fully compen- 

 sated for by the minute inspection to which they will be 

 subjected to at your hands. Before proceeding further, how- 

 ever, I would humbl}/ claim your kind indulgence to say a few 

 words relative to the early history of this ancient parish and 

 the surrounding district, with which I have been familiar since 

 my childhood. I shall, therefore, ask you to bear with me for 

 a short time, while I endeavour to put before you the few facts 

 which I have hurriedly arranged in the most condensed form, 

 merely to serve as a brief historical outline of a division of the 

 country teeming with research and full of antiquarian lore. 

 Leaving Downpatrick, the representative city of the once 

 famous kingdom of Ulidia, and proceeding in a north-easterly 

 direction for a distance of about one and a half miles, along one 

 of the most charming roads in Ireland, we arrive at Saul ; and 

 taking our stand on the little green patch in the centre of the 

 spot where the three roads converge, and looking steadily 

 around on every hand, upon the beauty and magnificence of 

 the scene which presents itself to our view, we can reasonably 

 account for the intense love and veneration cherished by our 

 patron saint for a land so fair and a scene so rare. It may be 

 a source of disappointment to many to find historians differing 

 as they do regarding the place where St. Patrick first set foot 

 on Irish soil. It is a question which has never given rise to 

 any degree of doubt in my mind, since I have closely followed 

 up the line laid down so carefully by Dr. Lanigan (author of 

 the Ecclesiastical History of Ireland), who was fully satisfied 

 regarding Lough Cuan (now known as Strangford) as the place 

 where the saint landed. The late Mr. L W. Hanna, whose 

 knowledge of Irish history was unsurpassed, and whom I had 



