St. Patrick and the Druids

James Bonwick Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Let us see what the biographers of St. Patrick have to relate about the Druids.

A work published at St. Omer, in 1625, by John Heigham, has this story:— “One day as the Saint sayd masse in the sayd church, a sacrilegious magitian, the child of perdition, stood without, and with a rodd put in at the window, cast down the chalice, and shed the holy sacrament, but God without delay severely punished so wicked a sacrilege, for the earth opening his mouth after a most strange manner, devoured the magitian, who descended alive downe to hell.”

Again:— “A certain magitian that was in high favor with the King, and whome the King honoured as a god, opposed himself against S. Patricke, even in the same kind that Simon Magus resisted the apostle S. Peter; the miserable wretch being elevated in the ayre by the ministery of Devils, the King and the people looked after him as if he were to scale the heavens, but the glorious Saint, with the force of his fervent prayers, cast him downe unto the ground, where dashing his head against a hard flint, he redred up his wicked soule as a pray to the infernnall Fiendes.”

The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick relates:— “Laeghaire MacNeill possessed Druids and enchanters, who used to foretell through their Druidism and through their paganism what was in the future for them.”

Coming to a certain town, the Saint, according to history, “found Druids at that place who denied the Virginity of Mary. Patrick blessed the ground, and it swallowed up the Druids.”

The book of 1625 is the authority for another story:— “Two magitians with their magicall charmes overcast all the region with a horrible darkness for the space of three dayes, hoping by that meanes to debar his (Patrick’s) enterance into the country.”

Again:— “Nine magitians cospired the Saint’s death, and to have the more free accesse to him, they counterfeited theselves to be monks, putting on religious weeds; the Saint, by divine information, knew the to be wolves wraped in sheeps cloathing; making, therefore, the signe of the crosse against the childre of Satan, behould fire descended from Heaven and consumed them all nine.”

He is also reported to have caused the death of 12,000 idolaters at Tara.

St. Patrick contended with the Druids before King Laeghaire at Tara. One, Lochra, hardened the King’s heart against the preaching; so “the Saint prayed that he might be lifted out and die, even as St Peter had obtained the death of Simon Magus. In an instant Lochra was raised up in the air, and died, falling on a stone.”

This Lochra had, it is said, previously foretold the Saint’s visit:— “A Tailcenn (baldhead) will come over the raging sea, With his perforated garments, his crook-headed staff, With his table (altar) at the east end of his house, And all the people will answer—‘Amen! Amen!’”