HAVING given the different theories concerning the native country of
St. Patrick, and having faithfully quoted all that the Seven old Latin
"Lives" of the Saint have narrated on this subject, and given our
reasons for accepting the Armoric theory as the most reasonable
solution of the problem, it will be advisable to give a brief summary
of the arguments brought forward to prove that St. Patrick was an
Armorican Britain, born at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Boulogne-sur-Mer, or ancient Bononia, was called by the same name,
"Bonaven," as the town in which St. Patrick implies that he was born.
Boulogne possessed a Roman encampment, and it was, therefore, Bonaven
Taberniae, mentioned in the "Confession."
Caligula's tower, on the north-eastern cliffs, in the town and within
the suburbs, was called "Turris Ordinis" by the Romans, but "Nemtor" by
the Gaulish Celts, as Hersart de la Villemarque states in his "Celtic
Legend."
It is certain that Niall of the Nine Hostages made use of the Port of
Boulogne when he invaded Armorica in the twenty-seventh year of his
reign, and that he died at that port after his assassination.
It is probable that Niall sailed to Boulogne when invading Armorica on
the first occasion, for he was carrying his arms into the same country,
of which Boulogne was the principal port, and the only one used by the
Romans when invading England.
The return of Niall from his first expedition into-Armorica with
captives, including St. Patrick, on board in the year 388, corresponds
precisely with the fifteenth year of St. Patrick, who was born in the
year 373. This fact is not only testified by Keating, but by Hersart de
la Villemarque in his "Celtic Legend," who narrates that Calphurnius,
St. Patrick's father, was a Roman officer in charge of Nemtor, near
which his family resided in a Roman villa, and that Calphurnius was
slain, and St. Patrick made captive by a hostile fleet that came from
Ireland.
As Nemtor was not only the name of the tower, but the district of the
tower, and situated within the suburbs of Bonaven, St. Fiacc's account
of his patron's birthplace, which simply gives the name of the
district, and St. Patrick's statement that his home was in the suburban
district of Bonaven, harmonise together.
The Scholiast and the author of the Trepartite "Life," by admitting
that the Saint was captured in Armorica, annul their assertion that he
was born in Scotland, because St. Patrick distinctly states that his
family hailed from Bonaven Tabernise, or Boulogne, and that he was
captured while residing at his father's villula. The Scholiast and
Tripartite "Life" consequently admit that Bonaven Taberniae was
situated in Armorica.
The impression that Bononia, or Boulogne, was St. Patrick's native town
is confirmed by Probus; he narrates all the misfortune that overtook
Calphurnius and his family whilst they were quietly living in their own
native country (in patria), and in their own seaside city in Armorica.
Armorica was then included in the Province of Neustria, one of the sub-
divided kingdoms of the Franks, and it was on that account that Probus
states that St. Patrick was born in Neustria.
Ware, Usher, and Cardinal Moran, who cling to the Scotch theory of St.
Patrick's birth, all contradict the Scholiast, who asserts that St.
Patrick was born in Dumbarton; whilst those who hold fast to the
Dumbarton theory make frantic efforts to convert the Crag into a
heavenly tower.
St. Patrick, after the vision, in which he was told that he should
return to his own native country, sailed to Gaul and not to the Island
of Britain.
It had been proved on the authority of Sulpicius Severus, who was born
in the year 360, that Armorica was called Britannia, and the Armoricans
were called Britons when the Council of Ariminium was held in the year
359--fourteen years before the birth of St. Patrick. The Saint, when
writing his "Confession" in 493, when the province had even a stronger
claim to the name, could emphatically say, if he was born in Armorica,
that he was a Briton and had relatives amongst the Britons.