Chapter 2"Patrick was a Briton. In fact, he is the only ancient Briton of the Roman occupation that we really know anything about. To give a date for his birth is impossible but it was probably near the end of the fourth century - 390AD has been suggested.
He was of an aristocratic, well-to-do, religious family.His father Calpurnius, in addition to being a 'deacon' in the church held an official position associated with the Roman administration and owned a villa and estate near to the village called Bannavem Taberniae (there is some doubt about the exact name).Thought to lie somewhere near the west coast of Britain. Patrick's native tongue was an old Celtic language of which the present Welsh is a modified form, he was also familiar with Latin.
One fateful day a party of fierce Irish raiders descended on the estate; some of the servants were murdered and sixteen year old Patrick, along with many others, was overpowered, dragged to the boats and shipped across the sea to a life of slavery in Ireland. It was a frightening , traumatic experience, the memory of which remained with him the rest of his life. As they headed home the pagan raiders could not have had the faintest notion that their brutal activities tht day would change the history of their island nor that, sixteen centuries later, the name of one of the captives huddled in the bottom of the vessel would be a household word, better known than that of St. Augustine or even Constantine the Great."Tomorrow - His Conversion
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