Page 70 - Demo

70 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
the point or edge of the sword. Hence all his communities became establishments of faith and trust.
Thus it was that he effected a mighty unifying revolution without persecution or blood- shed and because of this an ancient unnamed scribe noted somewhat naively: ‘Patrick was to the Gaelic race what Confucius was to the Oriental, Moses to the Israelite, Mohammed to the Arab.’
Armagh, Downpatrick, and Sabhall have all claimed to possess the remains of St Pat- rick, but it is generally accepted that he was buried in the first church founded by him in the Sabhall of Dichu. However, tradition tells us that following his death, a contention arose between the men of Uladh and Hy Neill, each wishing to have the great man’s remains laid in their midst, the former because he had died in their territory, the Hy Neill because he had desired to be buried in the church which was the chief of all the churches in Ireland. It is maintained that an angel bade them yoke two untrained oxen to a cart on which the shroud- ed body was laid, and where they would stop, there the body should be buried. According to the tradition the oxen halted at a place called Dunleithglasse, afterwards re-named Down- patrick, and it was here that he was buried. In 1900, the noted historian and antiquary, Mr. Francis J. Bigger placed a granite boulder bearing a cruciform motif, albeit of a kind not characteristic to Ulster and simply inscribed PATRIC on the spot of a three sectioned tomb allegedly discovered by the Norman knight John de Courcy in 1185 and claimed by him to contain the remains/relics of Patrick, Brigid, and Columba. The boulder now marks the final resting place of he who is dubbed ‘The Apostle of Ireland.’
“I journeyed among you, and everywhere, for your sake, often in danger, even to the outermost parts beyond which there is nothing, places where no one had ever arrived to baptise or ordain clergy or confirm the people”.
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