From the following extracts I send in answer to your correspondent Ceyrep, there seems to be very great doubt if St. Patrick ever existed in reality, but that we ought rather to place him in the same category with St. Amphibalus, St. Denis, &c. Dr. Ledwich relates that—
"In Usuard's, and the Roman Martyrology, Bishop Patrick, of Auvergne, is placed at the 16th day of March, and on the same day the office of the Lateran canons, approved by Pius V., celebrates the festival of a Patrick, the apostle of Ireland. The 17th of March is dedicated to Patrick, Bishop of Nola. Had not Dr. Maurice, then, the best reasons for supposing that Patricus Auvernensis sunk a day lower in the calendar, and made for the Irish a Patricius Hibernensis? This seems exactly to be the case. It is very extraordinary the 16th and 17th of March should have three Patricks, one of Auvergne, another of Ireland, and a third of Nola! The antiquities of Glastonbury record three Patricks, one of Auvergne, another archbishop of Ireland, and a third an abbot. The last, according to a martyrology cited by Usher, went on the mission to Ireland, A.D. 850, but was unsuccessful: he returned and died at Glastonbury. If all that is now advanced be not a fardel of monkish fictions, which it certainly is, the last Patrick was the man who was beatified by the bigoted Anglo-Saxons, for his endeavours to bring the Irish to a conformity with the Romish church."
Dr. Aikin remarks upon this—
"The author now ventures upon the bold attempt of annihilating St. Patrick. It is an undoubted fact, that this saint is not mentioned in any author, or in any work of veracity, in the fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth centuries. His name is in Bede's Martyrology; but it is more than probable that that martyrology is not Bede's: nor can it be conceived that Bede, in his other works, should never notice the signal service rendered by Patrick to the Roman church, and the signal miracles wrought by him in its behalf, if he had ever heard of them; for the old venerabilis was zealously devoted to that church and its mythology."
The saint certainly vanishes into "an airy nothing," if we are to credit the above authors. I have also consulted Ware, a Roman Catholic writer, author of the Antiquitates Hibernicæ, and nowhere can I find a trace of St. Patrick's birthplace, although he is frequently mentioned. In his seventh chapter he says, "Sancti præcipui Hibernici Seculi quinti, qui Euangelium in Hibernia prædicærunt, fuerunt Palladius, Patricius," and many others. The twenty-sixth chapter entitled "Monasteriologia Hibernica, sive Diatriba de Hiberniæ Cœnobiis, in qua Origines eorum et aliæ Antiquitates aperiuntur," gives the names and titles of the founders of monasteries, as also their dates, and, in speaking of one of them, but in this case specifying no date, relates a curious circumstance as to the building of a church. It may perhaps interest your readers, and I will therefore quote the passage (p. 212.):
"Sanctus Patricius construxit hoc cœnobium Canonicis regularibus, eique præfecit Abbatem S. Dunnium: Ecclesiam verò adjecit (juxta Jocelinum Furnessensem), contra morem receptum, non ab Occidente in Orientem, sed à Septentrione in Austrum protensam."
This nevertheless hangs upon the reality of a St. Patrick. In another part of the same work it is said of a monastery (p. 219.):
"S. Dabeocum fundâsse ferunt Seculo 5, vivente S. Patricio. Alii S. Patricium fundatorem volunt."
From these quotations it is clear Ware treated him as a real actor in Irish ecclesiastical affairs; but the two first-named authors appear to set the matter at rest.
E. M. R.