General Chat

For no other reason than it intregues me ....

St David was born in Wales, his mother being St Nom who lived in Gwynedd. She, depending on source, was either a beautiful local woman, or as some believe, of noble Irish birth originally. Despite being the result of rape, David was at least born in Wales.

St Patrick was born in Roman Britain. He was taken prisoner during an Irish raid, and spent 6 years as a slave. Escaped back to mainland, and when he returned to Ireland it was as a bishop. But he was not Irish.

St Andrew was born in modern day Israel (brother of Simon Peter (St Peter)). He never travelled as far as Scotland, but, supposedly there are relics associated with him in St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh....so falls into the 'Patron' range.

St George was born to a Greek family, in Israel / Palestine (Lyda/Lod). Also, he was not English. Venerated as a Christian Martyr, but also revered by Muslims. He didn't visit England, and I don't know of any relics there either (?).

So, you have an illegitimate son who became, amongst other things, an archbishop of Jerusalem, a slave who became a bishop, a fisherman who preached in Asia Minor and Greece before falling foul of the Romans, and a Roman soldier who became a tribune, but refused to renounce his Christian upbringing and was executed, by the Romans. Buried in Lyda or Lydda.

To summarise:

Wales - Welsh person
Ireland - English person
Scotland - Middle Eastern person
England - Roman person, born in the Middle East.

And we wonder why we have some 'differences' ???

:-D :-D :-D

and a pillock for an Archdruid in North Wales :-D :-D

Oh dear.
Ann, you've got your norty head on, haven't you ?? ;-)

Ann........my lappie's just had a tea spray LOLOL :-D

Being a through and through English person (cannot claim to be Welsh, Scottish or Irish because I am not)........I dont really care about St Georges day why make a load of fuss and nonsense about someone who probably did'nt exist :-D

The Irish are called Paddy because their saint is St Patrick.

Our local saint is St Richard. Oh dear!

Jax, he did exist I'm afraid, just the tale about 'slaying the Dragon' gets a bit twisted. But he's not just the Patron Saint of England .... Georgia has a bit of a claim, as do a number of others.
:-)

Sharron, Richard is a 'local' Saint though, not a Patron. The English also have
St Edmund, but he's generally forgotten about ((except for place-names, churches, schools etc.))

Can get confusing...... :-( :-D

Doesn't stop us being Dicks though does it?

Ok a foreign man called George who never met any dragons...had he gone to Wales to find a dragon, they would not have let him in because he could'nt speak the lingo :-D

Jax. What language did your ancestors speak in England in those days then. Gog/Magog hills in Cambridgeshire, Penkridge in Staffordshire, Cumbrian counting of sheep till recently same pattern as Welsh. Eartly Welsh poets living in East of England.

I think you will find your English ancestors yackie dahed as much as MrD's and mine. It is deep in your soul and psyche to speaka da lingo. Pob hwyl, cariad fach. ;-)

I have been thinking a little bit about this, MrD.

And little significance where patron saints were born, I think. If you take the main two saints of the first century, St Peter and St Paul, they were born Galilee and Turkey. Yet their main influence was in other parts of the Med. Peter seems to have a great influence in Rome, whether we believe or not he was first Bishop of Rome. And Paul had huge influence in Malta - yet was born opposite end of Med and would have known nothing of Maltese language and customs when shipwrecked there near Mellieha.

It is strange that the English never seem to do much about their national identity and their patron saint - as contrasted with an Irish teacher at my primary school in Wolverhampton who bought shamrocks for all the children and got us very interested in her patron saint. :-)

MrD. I think you may have a typo in your opening post. St David's mum is St Non, not St Nom.

We've been to St Non's well in Pembs where St David was supposed to have been born, the well is supposed to have healing properties.

http://www.castlewales.com/stnon.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_of_St_Non

Do you think they will make Mother Teresa a saint?

I agree MrDaff, there are some great stories attached to these patron saints of ours and their history is fascinating.

There are SO many patron saints - some attached to the Roman Catholic church and some to the Anglican - and each have their own unique story.

All churches are named after a saint or 'event' eg. (St. George's....Holy Trinity.......Sacred Heart etc).

Usually, most churches celebrate their own saint's day (Patronal Festival) by holding a special service or event which depicts the life of their saint.

Many occupations have their own patron saint too........easily found on google.

I wondered if there was a patron saint for genealogy but it seems not. I did, however, find a Roman Catholic site which states:

"The authors of this project sought to find a patron, and while there is no “official” patron saint of genealogy, there are quite a few saints that we can call upon for help as we research our roots.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants, whom many of us have in our family trees. Then there is St. Helena, the patron saint of archaeologists – after “digging up” information in piles of dusty books, sometimes she feels like an appropriate intercessor.

St. Anne and St. Joachim were the grandparents of Jesus, and St. Matthew wrote his earthly genealogy.

In desperate moments, we’re likely to call upon St. Anthony to find our lost and missing ancestors or St. Jude for those “hopeless” cases with elusive ancestors.

But St. Jerome seems to be the most all-encompassing patron for what genealogists do, for he is the patron of archivists, librarians, and translators. "


Now, not many people know that :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

The parish of Llannon near Llanelli is named after mother of Dewi Sant (Saint David).

She was a nun and the daughter of Lord Cynyr of Pembrokeshire. Legend has it she was raped and the baby Dewi was born at Capel Non near St Davids. Non died in Brittany near Brest (Dirinon) and her relics were formerly kept in Cornwall in Altamun.

In Dirinon in Brittany, there is Eglise Sainte-Nonne

In Altamun in Cornwall, there is St Nonna's Church

In Llannerch Aeron parish (near Aberaeron) there is St Non's Church

But no link with North Wales that I have seen yet. Just Pembs, Carms, Cornwall and Britanny.

Her father (Lord Cynyr) presumably is remembered in the name of a parish near Carmarthen - Llangynnor (sometimes spelt Llangynyr).

And plenty of Llanddewis in Wales. Llanddewi Brefi is well known. :-D

Why don't we English make more of our Patron Saint, or St George's Day? Because for at least the last 50 years, we've been encouraged to think more in terms of being British not English as an independent identity!!!

It probably came about as an inclusive move once the post war immigration from Commonwealth countries started to become prevelant. Think 'Windrush' from the Caribbean, and the Ugandan Asians, refugees after Indian partition. Bangladesh/Pakistan genocide.

The Flag of St George in recent years has been hijacked by the BNP; the Red Rose of England by the Labour Party. So what do we have left?

DET. You have by far the most powerful and wealthiest nation of these islands - whether we can call them the British Isles or have to settle for the Irish preference to call them the North Atlantic Islands.

Shame it is only for football and rugby that you can fly the flag without being run in. I do note a number of immigrant shopkeeperes now fly St George's flag in May.

Edit at 1033. Sorry, Meant April 23rd

St George’s Day is 23 April – the flag flying in May is probably to celebrate May Day, (1st of the month and associated movable Bank Holiday) another spring festival hijacked by the Labour Party and renamed Labour Day (as in Workers)

England might well be the ‘wealthiest’ nation within the Union…which has the highest population many of whom are on State Benefits of one sort or another and has to support the less ‘wealthy’ nations within the Union. We are dependent on one another for resources, benefits and taxable income to pay for those.

It’s pointless harking back to what was, No one can change the past. We (all of us) should be considering what is now and the future.

Sorry MrD - this has gone totally off topic. I'll delete if requested.