Saint Patrick: Where Do the Good Saint’s Bones Lay?
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
Quite soon, or thereafter – depending upon when the presses roll – we will close the books on our first full-fledged celebration of Saint Patrick since the COVID-19 pandemic fell upon us two years ago.
We will firmly sink a final nail in the coffin of COVID, and the much-revered saint will smile upon us as we return to normal lives – new, old or otherwise. With any luck, his annual commemoration will never be disrupted again. We can only hope.
But where, a reader asks, do the remains of our favored saint rest? And are there any relics of him?
The possession of relics was a major goal of all great pilgrimage sites in the Middle Ages, and even to the present day. In order to be a place of pilgrimage, a cathedral needed to have relics of a saint. The older the saint, the more powerful the relic. The best relic would be one from Jesus himself. These existed primarily in the form of wood from the cross, or blood from his wounds, preserved in a sacred chalice, the Holy Grail, object of many Medieval quests.
As far as Saint Patrick goes, there are plenty of relics. The National Museum of Ireland in Dublin holds a tooth alleged to be that of the saint, lost when he traveled through Sligo converting the Celtic tribes there to Christianity. There is a jawbone venerated as his in the Roman Catholic church in Derriaghy, County Antrim.
The Ulster Museum in Belfast holds a silver reliquary in the shape of an arm and a hand reputed to have once contained just that. Unfortunately, both arm and hand are long gone, possibly taken to Rome by Papal authorities in 1186. Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City even holds a bit of his bones, a gift from Rome, perhaps part of the “loot” from the 12th century “relocation.” It has been enshrined in the cathedral’s high altar since 1942.
And then, there are the rocks. Saint Patrick liked to sit. Perhaps all that walking throughout Ireland tired him out. After all, he was not a young man when he returned to the country in 432, a cleric on a mission: convert the Irish to Christianity.
There are numerous rock chairs throughout Ireland alleged to be places where the saint sat, and holy wells where he baptized converts – or maybe just slaked his thirst. While not relics, these locations are pre-Christian sites Patrick astutely knew to seek out and by his presence convert them to symbols of the new religion. Croagh Patrick in Mayo is an excellent example. By fasting on its summit for 40 days, he turned it from a Druid place of worship to a saint’s holy mountain.
As to where his bones lay, there is little dispute. Most say he lies in the graveyard of Down Cathedral, in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. Down, in Irish “dun,” means “hill,” and it was on the “hill of Patrick” that his body was purportedly laid to rest when he died in 461. A cathedral was erected there years later.
Supposedly, he has company there. An 11th century Anglo-Norman nobleman, Lord John DeCourcy, is said to have somehow gathered the bodies of two of Ireland’s other most revered saints – Saint Colmcille (Columba), and Saint Brigid – and had them interred with Saint Patrick. Cathedrals in Armagh and Kildare, equally important sites in Ireland, vied with Downpatrick for “burial bragging rights.” But in the end, most agree, Saint Patrick rests in Downpatrick, if not in the exact location commonly held to be his grave, at the worst somewhere close by.
On a final note, I love receiving feedback on these columns, and rarely does an issue pass without at least one comment – all favorable – from a reader. Keep those e-mails coming!
Pleasantville resident Brian McGowan was born and raised in the Bronx and is a second-, third- and fifth-generation Irish-American/Canadian, as his immigrant ancestors followed several paths to the New World. Reach him at brian.m.mcgowan1952@gmail.com or on Twitter (@Bmcgowan52M). He is the author of two books, “Thunder at Noon,” about the battle of Waterloo, and “Love, Son John,” about World War II. Both are available at Amazon.com.
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