From this point he made his way on foot to Meath, where the king Laoghaire was holding a pagan festival, and stopped to keep Easter on the hill of Slane where he lit a fire.  This fire being seen from the hill of Tara aroused great anger, as no lights were by law allowed to be shown before the king’s beacon was lit.  Laoghaire accordingly sent to know the meaning of this insolence and to have St. Patrick brought before him.  St. Patrick’s chronicler, Maccumacthenius (one could wish that he had been contented with a shorter name!), tells that as the saint drew nigh to Tara, many prodigies took place.  The earth shook, darkness fell, and certain of the magicians who opposed him were seized and tossed into the air.  One prodigy certainly took place, for he seems to have won converts from the first.  A large number appear to have been gained upon the spot, and before long the greater part of Meath had accepted the new creed, although its king, Laoghaire himself remained a sturdy pagan until his death.

From Tara St. Patrick went to Connaught, a province to which he seems to have been drawn from the first, and there spent eight years, founding many churches and monasteries.  There also he ascended Croagh Patrick, the tall sugar-loaf mountain which stands over the waters of Clew Bay, and up to the summit of which hundreds of pilgrims still annually climb in his honour.

From Connaught he next turned his steps to Ulster, visited Antrim and Armagh, and laid the foundations of the future cathedral and bishopric in the latter place.  Wherever he went converts seem to have come in to him in crowds.  Even the Bards, who had most to lose by the innovation, appear to have been in many cases drawn over.  They and the chiefs gained, the rest followed unhesitatingly; whole clans were baptized at a time.  Never was spiritual conquest so astonishingly complete!

The tale of St. Patrick’s doings; of his many triumphs; his few failures; of the boy Benignus his first Irish disciple; of his wrestling upon Mount Cruachan; of King Eochaidh; of the Bard Ossian, and his dialogues with the apostle, all this has been excellently rendered into verse by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, whose “Legends of St. Patrick” seem to the present writer by no means so well known as they ought to be.  The second poem in the series, “The Disbelief of Milcho,” especially is one of great beauty, full of wild poetic gleams, and touches which breathe the very breath of an Irish landscape.  Poetry is indeed the medium best suited for the Patrician history.  The whole tale of the saint’s achievements in Ireland is one of those in which history seems to lose its own sober colouring, to become luminous and half magical, to take on all the rosy hues of a myth.