John Arnold: St Patrick never did come to Cork, and I blame our hurlers!

Tis said that St Patrick never came to Cork, but nobody can be truly certain as the travels of saints were hardly ever reported in the papers in those days!

I half remember being at some seminar or conference in the last century all about hagiography, which I found out since is all about the lives of Saints and how they were written about.

I mention this in passing because, at that august gathering in the month of March of the year ‘twas on, there was fierce debate about where St Patrick went to school when he was young.

Now, he probably started national school in Wales ’cause that’s where he was born. Apparently, they wanted him to play rugby for Wales but he didn’t think much of it as a game at all- sure, wasn’t it Patrick himself invented Gaelic football years later?!

But now, anyhow, at that conference of learned academics from some educational academy, someone put forward the daft notion that Patrick got most of his schooling down in Kerry - near the big town of Tuosist -well, it was a big town long, long ago.

They say doctors differ and patients sometimes get better despite ’em, so a heated argument raged, which ended up as a debate as to where actually Patricius studied for the Inter Cert (called the Junior Cert nowadays).

It seems that there is little doubt at all, at all, but it was in Rosscarbery in West Cork he went to primary school - he was only 16 when captured in Wales and sold as a slave to Ireland.

But then this begs the question, if it was the bould Patrick that brought the true faith to this country - they called it Christianity - what kind of agnostic or pagan educational institutions were operating here in Rosscarbery or down in Kerry before that?

I think this is where the confusion arises a bit, because Patrick came to Ireland twice. The first time he had no choice in the matter - as a slave he was simply a piece of property to be traded like salt or gold - and when feeding pigs on Slemish, he had no great grá for the Irish, who didn’t exactly extend a ‘céad míle fáilte’ to the young lad on his first sojourn amongst the Irish population.

He would have gladly eaten the food the pigs were eating but no-one offered him a bite - sorry, sorry, I’m getting my Biblical parables mixed up; that’s the story of the prodigal son!

Anyway, suffice it to say young Patrick the slave never saw a ‘full Irish’, nor the inside of a B&B, let alone an airbnb. Nevertheless, he felt a ‘call’ to return to Ireland, and that’s probably when he came south to Munster for some schooling.

By all accounts, on his return voyage there was no red carpet out for him nor palm leaves like those that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem.

The Stena Line or the Innisfallen were a long ways into the future so the Wales to Ireland ‘return’ journey was made in an open boat. The closest place to Wales in Ireland is the tip of County Wicklow. So, on a fresh March morning in the year 432, emblazoned with missionary zeal, a boat-load of intrepid and fairly courageous priests and preachers set sail for Ireland.

This green isle was then famed as the country of Pigs and Pagans - apparently, pork and bacon were very popular then as Walter Raleigh had not yet introduced chips and potato croquettes to this country.

By all accounts, they had a good wind behind them and arrived off the south-east coast in jig time.

They landed at an Indian-sounding place - Travelahawk Bay in Wicklow - where they were pelted by stones and other objects - a nice howdydo for a man coming to make dacent people out of the savage Irish.

A lesser man might have said ‘Feck this for a game of cards’ and headed back to Llanymawaddy, Aberdovey or Nannerch in his home country. But no, Hail Glorious St Patrick was determined to make sure us Irish mended our ways and forgot about idolatry and the worship of the sun and the moon and the stars.

In fairness, the Druids were an influential body of men in this country - sure ’twas they brought the snakes here from Scandinavia. Patrick soon realised that trying to ‘bate’ the old ways and old practises out of the Irish would be like going nowhere fast.

Patrick adopted the policy, ‘If you cant beat ’em, join ’em’! So, after the fracas at the seaside in Wicklow, he moved up the country to Ulster and began converting local kings and queens - Ireland was full of such lesser royalty back in his time, they had limited power, a bit like county councillors today. They had their own clans and extended families and hangers-on.

The man from Wales knew if the boss in a family became a Christian, well, there was a good chance the others might follow - where there’s a will there’s a way, and owning a field or two was vital.

Using the Trifolium Dubium - also known hereabouts as shamrock - Patrick explained the 3-in-1 concept to the pagans. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost were all parts of one divine being – just like the three leaves of the shamrock.

The symbolism worked a treat and before long Christianity took off like wildfire. Patrick preached missions all over the country - that’s why so many Irish places bear his name Ballypatrick, Patrickswell, Kilpatrick, etc.

But to get back to my original point about, did he or did he not come to Cork ? Doing some chronological and canonical research lately, I’ve come to the conclusion, definitely, that he didn’t come to Cork.

Coming from rugby-mad Wales, he had never seen or heard of the ancient Irish game of ‘come on’ -that’s what one crowd would shout over the parish boundary at the other faction, ‘come on’ - this was translated into Irish later as ‘caman’, which became the name for a hurley, and that’s how hurling started.

Well, Patrick and some of his followers had come down from Lough Derg in Ulster to Lough Derg in Munster. Heading south somewhere between Kilfinnane and Kildimo, they came across a massive crowd.

Patrick was travelling on a donkey – now, it has been wrongly stated that someone from Cork stole his donkey near Kildorrery. A pure lie - the donkey ran away, frightened by the huge crowd, and headed for Liscarroll.

The crowd was gathering to play a hurling game between lads from Limerick and neighbours from Cork. At that time the teams were 200 a side. Well, Limerick could only muster 199 - one lad had the Black Plague and couldn’t play. “No game so - come back next week”... well, didn’t someone persuade Patrick to fall in with the Limerick team, and like, though he never caught an ash plant before that, he agreed.

Hurling at that time was a purely summer game - rough and ferocious. There were no helmets so an awful lot of cuts and head injuries - they called it the Split Season!

Play would go on unless a fella was really badly cut, then a white flag would be raised and play stopped to give attention and herbs to the injured player. If ’twas a woeful injury and he was pumping, the white flag would be doused in the blood and shown to the man that hit him - that’s how they started red cards in hurling!

In the game, anyway, didn’t Patrick get a bad scalp on the shin bone from a Cork fella - a pure pagan he was and stayed that way. As a visitor and a guest, Patrick was livid at the foul stroke. He vowed he’d never come to Cork - and he didn’t!