The belief that St. Patrick was born in Ross Vale, Pembrokeshire, is
founded principally on the supposed acceptance of that view by Camden,
and on an old tradition to the effect that St. Patrick, having
completed his missionary labours in Ireland, founded a monastery at
Menevia and died there.
As the authority of the learned Camden carries with it great weight, it
will here be not out of place to quote his own declaration, which is as
follows: "Beyond Ross Vale is a spacious promontory called by Ptolemy
Octopitarum, by the Britons Pebidiog and Kantev-Dewi, and by the
English St. David's land. . . . It was the retiring place and nursery
of several Saints, for Calphurnius, a British priest--_as some have
written, I know not hew truly_--begot there St. Patrick, the Apostle of
Ireland" ("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 32). The same author, in another
place, gives expression to his own views on the subject, to which,
indeed, he does not seem to have devoted very serious study. "St.
Patrick," he writes, "was a Briton born in Clydesdale, and related to
St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, and he was a disciple of St. Germanus"
("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 326).
The Ross Vale theory has, in truth, as little in its favour as the old,
but groundless, tradition that St. Patrick founded a monastery and
ended his days at Menevia. This is plainly contradicted by the Saint's
assertion that after he had landed as a missionary in Ireland he never
once left, and ended his days in the land of his adoption. "Though I
could have wished to leave them" (the Irish), writes the Saint in his
"Confession," "and had been desirous of going to Britain, as if to my
own country and parents, and not that alone, but even to Gaul to visit
my brethren, and see the face of the Lord's Saints. But I am bound in
the spirit, and He who witnesseth all will account me guilty if I do
it, and I fear to lose the labour which I have begun; and not I, but
the Lord Christ, who commanded me to come and remain with them for the
rest of my life, if the Lord prolongs it, and keeps me from all sin
before Him." This statement, which was made by St. Patrick just before
his death, when he wrote the "Confession," could never have been
volunteered if he had once left the country where the Lord had
commanded him to remain for the rest of his life.