Gossipings about the Parish of Saul. 45 



have investigated for themselves the facts connected with the 

 history of this district, I think there can be little difficulty in 

 arriving at the conclusion that, from the time the saint left the 

 boat, and penetrated into the thick wooded country, to the time 

 of his meeting with the native Irish Chief Dichu, the journey 

 between the place of his landing at the mouth of the Slain and 

 the place of meeting Dichu, fully correspond with every 

 narrative history records on the subject. I will not attempt to 

 tax your patience by reciting what actually took place at the 

 meeting of St. Patrick and Dichu on the sloping hillside at 

 Saul. The spirit of Divine power and love was surely there. 

 The swords and spears of Dichu and his warriors were soon 

 turned into ploughshares and pruning hooks. The light and 

 love of a Divine Spirit had touched our benighted land ; 

 henceforth, all things became changed and transformed. " The 

 wilderness and solitary place was made glad," and when the 

 saint had fulfilled his holv mission throughout the length and 

 breadth of this island, he returned, weary and foot-sore, to Saul, 

 the place he dearly loved, the spot from whence he oiiginally 

 started on his great work, and there he fell asleep in death, and 

 on the 17th of March, A.D. 493, was buried at Downpatrick. 

 Dichu either built by direction of the Saint, or it may be that a 

 building of some kind existed at Saul in the form of a barn, and 

 this the chieftain, after his conversion, gave to St. Patrick. In 

 course of time a church was built by the saint, and placed from 

 North to South. In Harris's History of Down, this church is 

 referred to as ** a monastery for canons regular — the first Abbot 

 appointed by the Saint being St. Dunnius. The modern 

 pronunciation of Sabhall is Saul, and the latter Latinised is 

 Saballum, and in the Irish language Sabhall or Savhall Phadrig, 

 signifying " the barn of Patrick." A short distance from 

 Saul, at a little village called Raholp (Rathcolpa;, is the church 

 of St. Thassach, the ruins of which are there to this day, having 

 withstood the ravages of time's destroying hand for so many 

 centuries. There it stands in all its loneliness, and is, without 

 exception, the most perfect type of the building of the fifth 



