To kilt or not to kilt: A St. Paddy's Day conundrum

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

While it is true that there is no account of a Roman army setting foot in Ireland, there was trade between Britannia, Caledonia, and Ireland/Hibernia. In the 1970s a hoard of Roman coins dating from (I believe) the third and fourth centuries was discovered in a cave in County Wicklow.

Of the two historical Patricks who came to Ireland in the 5th century, the first was from Brittany and the second from Romano-Britain. Christianity had come to Britannia with Roman troops and civil administrators in the second and third century, and was spread to Hibernia by Roman Christian "missionaries". By the 5th century the two Patricks were concerned as much with conversion as they were in "regularizing" Christian worship in Hibernia.

Our modern interpretation of "Saint Patrick" is based on a synthesis of the lives of both of these early Christian evangelicals.

[Woodsheal]

MacMillan is correct, although the first "Patrick" from Gaul was actually named Palladius. He was active in Ireland in the early 400's, whereas Patricius ("St Patrick") from Britain most likely did his missionary work in the second half of that century, dying in the 490's. Their activities did indeed become somewhat melded in later writings and legends of St Patrick, though Patrick was of course a unique and influential individual separate from Palladius and the other early "saints" in Ireland....