§ 3 In South Ireland
While Patrick’s sphere of immediate activity seems to have been mainly the northern half of the island, there is not much room for serious doubts that he claimed to hold a position of ecclesiastical authority over the southern provinces also. His own description of himself not as bishop in a particular province, but as bishop in Ireland generally,152 is sufficient to make this clear; and there are not wanting ancient records of his visits to Leinster and Munster. He is said to have baptized the sons of Dunlang, king of Leinster, and Crimthann, king of the Hy Ceinselaich; he is recorded to have visited the royal palace at the hill of Cashel and baptized the sons of Natfraich, king of Munster. It was remembered that he had passed through Ossory, and worked in the regions of Muskerry. If, as is possible, Christianity had made greater way in the southern kingdoms, he had less to do as a pioneer, but the task of organisation must have devolved upon him here as in the north. It is easy to understand why comparatively scanty traditions should have been preserved of his work in the south. His special association with the see of Armagh did not dispose the communities of Munster and Leinster to remember a connexion which supported the claims of that see to a superior jurisdiction.
IN LEINSTER
In Leinster, Patrick had two fellow-workers who occupied a special position. Auxilius and Iserninus, whom he had known at Auxerre, had been sent to Ireland about six years after his own coming.153 The origin of Auxilius is unknown. His name is still commemorated by a church which he founded, Killossy,154 not far from Naas, one of the chief abodes of the kings of Leinster. Iserninus was of Irish birth. His native name was Fith. He was born in the neighbourhood of Clonmore,155 on the borders of Carlow and Wicklow. Here, in the land of his clan, he first set up a church, but his ultimate establishment was at Aghade,156 on the Slaney. These regions formed part of a considerable kingdom which was at this time ruled over by Endae Cennsalach, who seems to have founded the political importance of his tribe, for the land came to be known by the name of the Children of Cennsalach. This king did what lay in his power to oppose the diffusion of the new faith, and Iserninus found it prudent to withdraw beyond the borders of his kingdom. Perhaps he found a refuge at Kilcullen,157 close to Dún Aillinn, one of the strongholds of the kings of Leinster. But Crimthann, the son and successor of Endae, was converted and baptized by Patrick at his dwelling in Rathvilly, on the banks of the Slaney, where earthworks still mark a seat of the kings of the Children of Cennsalach. This case is similar to the case of the sons of Amolngaid, and illustrates the general fact that while the older generation was still, fervently or patiently, clinging to the old beliefs, the younger generation was steadily turning to the new. The conversion of Crimthann enabled Iserninus to return to his own land, and he established himself at Aghade, a crossing-place on the Slaney, about nine miles below Rathvilly.
Among the acts which are ascribed to Patrick in Leinster, the consecration of Fíacc, the Fair, a pupil of the poet Dubthach, and himself a poet, deserve mention.158 The conversion of the poet into the Christian bishop reminds us of the more illustrious contemporary case of Sidonius Apollinaris. There seems no reason to doubt the truth of this tradition, and perhaps the bell, the staff, the writing tablet, and the cup and paten, which Patrick is said to have given to Fíacc, were preserved at the church where his memory was specially cherished. He was first settled at a church which was called after himself, Domnach Féicc, the situation of which is not improbably supposed to have been east of the Slaney, not far from Tallow.159 But he afterwards became bishop of Slébte, on the western bank of the Barrow, under the hills of Margy,160 and ended his days there. In the early middle ages Slébte was a notable place on the ecclesiastical map, but the desolate site shows no vestiges of its ancient importance. At the end of the seventh century Slébte renewed the ties which bound it to Armagh in the days of Fíacc and Patrick, and we possess a monument of this reconciliation in the earliest biography of Patrick that has come down to us, written by a clerk of Fíacc’s church.161