Category: ireland

Yesterday I was looking after my grandson when my daughter sent around a maternal missive about a collective endeavour to improve his  nutrition.  Cake was now off the agenda.  But his grandmother asked whether he was allowed Hot Cross Buns.  His father answered that whatever his son was allowed he himself was certainly having one. 

So I decided, as any cake loving person might, that it must be Good Friday. But it wasn’t of course it was St Patrick’s Day. 

St. Patrick has a very interesting autobiography.  He was captured by Irish pirates while living in a Romano British Town.  He says his father was a Decurion and a Deacon which suggests elements of Roman political organisation continued.  No one knows the dates of St Patrick’s life but these titles suggested an early date perhaps just after the end of Roman rule.

The town he lived in is called Bannavem Taburniae.  Many places have been suggested for it.  The closest linguistically is Bannaventa in Northamptonshire but this seems a very unlikely place for Irish raiders to land being about as far away from the sea as it is possible to get in Roman Britain.

People have suggested South Wales and the Scottish borders most commonly.  But my favourite suggestion is Battersea in London.  This was made in the pages of the London Archaeologist by editor Nicolas Fuentes. 

Fuentes was one of a pioneering group of archaelogists when Rescue Archaeology first began a campaign to record the archaeology that was being destroyed by massive redevelopment of town centres in the 70s.

He changed his name from the anglicised Nicholas Farrant back to its original Fuentes and wrote a magnificent series of papers which located St. Patrick in Battersea; St Alban’s execution in London and all 12 battles of King Arthur around Greater London.

All were well argued, but as a set  they do raise an eyebrow.  The one I really like is St Alban being martyred in London because it reminded everyone that this is what Gildas said in the 6th Century in one of the first references to the Saint.  Not so convinced by the 12 Battles of King Arthur for which there is just never going to be enough evidence to locate.

St Patrick in Battersea?  The evidence, as I remember it, was really only the  suggestion that Battersea was derived from Batrick’s Island or originally Patrick’s Island.  The word sea being used in that sense along the River Thames as in Chelsea, Thorney, Putney (ey short for eyot (island) as in Chelsey).

St Patrick lived as a slave for 6 years at the age of 16. Then escaped from captivity in Ireland returned home. Trained as a priest in perhaps Auxerre and returned to Ireland to begin the conversion to Christianity.

He is Patron saint of Ireland with St. Brigitte and St. Colomba.

Another candidate for Bannavem Taburniae’ come from Andrew Breeze:

This is what Salon IFA says about it:

Not these are not my words but copied from their newsletter (I did ask the previous editor if it was ok to do this by the way.) I will edit into my own words when I republish this post in Mardh 2024.

Does Saint Patrick Hail from Somerset?

Today Saint Patrick is of course synonymous with Ireland, but new research by Andrew Breeze FSA has

revived a previous theory that the Saint in fact comes from the West Country, and more specifically Somerset.

Saint Patrick’s autobiographical Confession is the most significant source for his life in the fourth or fifth century. In it, the saint explains that he was snatched from his home by Irish raiders when he was a teenager, escaping back to his parents after six years but then choosing to return to the country of his capture as a missionary. Yet, the place of Saint Patrick’s birth has always been a point of debate for scholars, with South Wales, southwestern Scotland, or close to Carlisle, all being put forward.

Breeze, in his paper for the Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture, argues that the ‘Bannavem Taburniae’ where Patrick himself says he was taken prisoner is in fact Banwell, near Weston-super-Mare in North Somerset. Citing research by Harry Jelley, published in the late 1990s, Breeze promotes the argument that Bannaventa was a Latinisation of a Brittonic name that included banna, for a bend,

crook or peak, and venta, for an area of local administration. He suggests that both these elements, as well as the Berniae element of ‘Taburniae’, can be found in the name Banwell, itself a compound name of the Brittonic ‘Banna’ and the Old English wylle, both meaning pool, or in the names of surrounding villages.

His theory is supported by the fact archaeologists have suggested Irish raiders travelling up the Severn Estuary could be responsible for fourth-century attacks on North Somerset villas.

Breeze said ‘It all started to make sense, because Banwell is in an area that has many remains of Roman villas. It was a prosperous agricultural area and we know Patrick’s father was a decurion, which means he held a municipal office. So there must have been a big city near to the estate. In this case, it would have been Bath. The important thing about this part of Somerset is it has a very low-lying coast, which means that it was open to raids by the Irish.’

For more information, please see this History First article.

Image credit: Looking south from Winthill, near Banwell, Somerset, Colin S Pearson; Banwell in Somerset, Google Street View