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Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



were carried off, but that his parents escaped. They may have been 

 sheltered within the walls of Eannavem Taberniae. The language of 

 Conf. 23, Iterum . . . in Britamiis eram cum parentihus meis qui me ut 

 filium susciperunt cannot be urged as proof that his father and mother 

 were not killed on this occasion, since parentes might simply mean 

 * relatives,' and it probably has this meaning in Conf. 43, where he 

 speaks of the possibility of seeing his parentes were he again to visit 

 Britain. It is not likely that his father and mother were alive at the 

 time that the Confession was written. The raid was on a large scale. 

 Patrick reckons the captives by thousands, tot milia hominum — 

 probably a natural exaggeration. v, 

 The man to whom Patrick became a slave employed him in tending 

 flocks, cotidie pecora pasceham (Conf. 1 6) ; and in the solitude of this 

 employment the germs of the love and fear of God, sown in childhood, 

 soon developed. He would say as many as a hundred prayers in the 

 day time, and nearly as many in the night. He would rise to his 

 devotions before daybreak, even when he was out in the woods and on 

 the mountains. 



At last his special prayer was answered in two successive 

 heavenly voices : Thou fastest tvell, ivho art soon to go to thy father- 

 land', and Zo, thy ship is ready. Patrick was now a young man of 

 twenty-two, and he terminated his six years' servitude by flight. 

 He tells us that the place where he found his ship was about 

 two hundred miles distant from the scene of his captivity ; but in what 

 direction it lay, he does not say. On the one hand, some place on the 

 east coast of Ireland obviously suggests itself as being near Britain. On 

 tlie other hand, there is a passage, further on, which is most naturally 

 explained by supposing that he fled westwards through Conn aught. 

 He tells us that, in the vision which determined his return to Ireland, 

 / thought I heard the voice of them who lived heside the wood of Fochlut, 

 which is nigh unto the western sea (Conf. 23). I^'ow, at the time that 

 this vision occurred he had not been in Ireland since his escape from 

 captivity. How, then, did he know the name of the wood of Fochlut, 

 or recognise the accent of tlie men who dwelt there ? The testimony as 

 to County Antrim having been the scene of his captivity is too strong to 

 permit us to place it in County Mayo instead. Again, Patrick does 

 not tell us how long he spent on the journey to his ship. Doubtless, 

 he would delay as little as possible ; but the mention of the hut in 

 which he was being entertained before he accosted the sailors, proves 

 that he had time to learn something of the country through which he 

 passed. He tells us (Conf. 18) that when he was repulsed by the 



