Darerca

CHAPTER 20

The year was 454 AD.
He would never have believed that he could live until this magnificent age, not in these days, not in the middle of the 5th century. One hundred and twenty at a time when the average mortality was about fifty. He had indeed being blessed. Perhaps it was the lonely sustained subsistence when he was a mere shepherd boy that had sustained him into old life. It wasn't all bliss!
Everyone was gone. His parents, his sister Darerca, and even some of her children. Even some of his brother missionaries.
Victorious had revisited him assuring him his time was near but also giving him a glimpse into the near future - saints like Kevin of Glendalough, Columba of Iona and Bridget. He was shown great monasteries and he was shown what good he had done in preparing the way.
He remembered the first time he had met Victorious, and the warrior had handed him a letter in which the Irish people entreated him to return to Hibernia and to spread the word of Christianity.
Darerca couldn't believe her ears. "You want to go back where?"
"Hibernia," Patrick insisted. "First Gaul for training and then Hibernia."He looked into her green eyes."You'll spend time there yourself," he prophesied.
"No, I won't," she laughed. Her face grew serious. "Is this one of those horrid prophecies?" Darerca knew about the prophecies; in fact, she sometimes had them herself.

*

The raid took place at dawn.
Most of the encampment was still asleep but they awoke to a horror, a terror. A Britannia warlord Corticus knew how to inspire terror.
His men went around the encampment, killing anyone who showed resistance and taking a number of prisoners who were quickly bound together with rope. If they didn't move fast enough they were whipped, again with rope.
Coroticus gave the order to move back to the boats. By midday his work had been discovered and bodies were buried and cremated.
Word was carried to the ears of Paddy.
He was furious. Men killed who had made good progress towards the priesthood. Children killed and women.
Coroticus could be compared to men like Aedh Black and White. Men of power who stank of corruption. Difficult men.
Patrick decided to write an excommunication letter.
It was an angry letter, a letter warning of extreme sanctions and excommunication from the church of the prisoners were not returned and he signed off on it by using his official Roman name Patricius.
A week passed and then another. Then a month or two before it became obvious that Coroticus wouldn't release his prisoners.
Patrick was left with no option but to carry through his excommunication. It meant that Coroticus couldn't receive Holy Communion, forbidden from receiving any sacraments and couldn't be buried on sacred ground until he repented and made good his sins.

*

He knew he couldn't go on forever.
In the last few years a weariness had entered his bones, and he found movement painful. More and more, he retreated from the public eye, allowing his more youthful followers like Benin to spread their holy wings, and to carry on with the work that he had started.
He was aware of the importance of written records, and he began recording things to paper. He had been told in a dream that the land he had evangelised would become a land of saints and scholars, but that it would face many hardships in the years, indeed the centuries, ahead. He was allowed a glimpse of some of these things: Saint Colmcille, Saint Brendan, Saint Kevin, the influence of Saint Brigid who lived in his own time, Strongbow, Padraig Pearse, Eamon de Valera, and Michael Collins. He was also afforded a glimpse of the great writers and poets: Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and Seamus Heaney, and of course the great Book of Kells.
The first thing he decided to set down to paper was his 'confessio'. Basically it set out his early life, how he found God whilst in captivitity, his escape, and the toils of preaching. He kept it simple. He spoke of where he came from and what his parents and grandparents had done in life. He spoke of Darerca and how well her off-spring had turned out.
His second major piece of writing was the strongly worded excommunication letter to Coroticus.

*

In time, it became known as an island of saints and scholars. The 6th century was a huge turning point. Paddy's initial seeding had borne fruit.
In Glendalough, Saint Kevin had founded the monastic grounds there. The grounds were surrounded by high mountains with a lake at ground level. There was a peace in the air that was hard to comprehend; one of those places on earth where our planet met the kingdom of heaven. The birds in the air sang of it, dancing and twirling on the winds above.
It was said that Kevin was of noble birth, born to Coemlog and Coemell of Leinster and there is a legend that a white cow frequented his home every morning with milk for the newborn. For him.
And then, there was Brigid.
She was known as Brigid of Kildare and many miracles are attributed to her. It's said that whilst growing up she fed the poor from her kitchen larder but was always able to restock the larder for their own family meals. There were whispers that she was descended from the Tuatha De Danann - Irish mythology confirming them as a supernatural race. It was strange how the world of gods and goddesses intruded into ordinary life and of how ordinary life was intertwined with mythology and legends.

Colmcille was mentioned in the same breath. He ended up on the island of Iona within a hair's breath of the land he longed for. He'd fled victorious from a battle which had seen hundreds killed.
And then there was Ciaran of Clonmacnoise sometimes known as Ciaran the Younger to distinguish him from Ciaran the Elder, yet another saint from the same time period. He was also known as one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.

Word reached Patrick one day of a bitter fight between two men - Aedh Black and Jack White - and of how they had slain one another. A grim smile touched his lips. He was no longer in danger from either man. King Laoghaire was also gone and his son Lugaid sat on the throne but after his reign kingship would pass from the Laoghaire clan because of a spell that Patrick placed there. If they weren't going to accept the word of God, then rue to their fortunes.

The stone's inscription was written in Ogham. It gave the dates of birth and of death and read Darerca, Sister of Saint Patrick, Patron Saint of Valentia. Out on the Atlanticum Mare the waves roared and the seagulls swooped.