Though St Patrick, to be sure, was Scots

around lunchtime today. The sham will be rocking with green beer for the

young lads and lasses; lashings of white lemonade for the children, and

golden balls of malt for the old men and women.

This liquid tricolour will take a tanking from the assembled squads

who, if past years are anything to go by, will be soaked inside and out

after taking part in the annual St Patrick Day parade.

Sadly, we won't be there this year to duck in and out of the rain as

it funnels in from the Atlantic, up the Beach Road and into the wide

market square. And this means that no-one will be punting the line in

the pub that St Patrick wasn't an Irishman at all, but a Scot from

Dumbarton.

In a country where eccentrics are ten a penny, and tolerance of them

abounds, this Scottish scenario can attract some really odd looks -- and

reactions.

But St Patrick was born in Scotland to be sure . . . to be sure! I've

been trying for years to get the Irish to see the light about their

patron saint's history -- whose origin I now find is substantiated by no

less an authority than The Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scots,

edited by Robert Chambers (available for inspection at Glasgow's

Mitchell Library).

I'm sure though that it will be every bit as hard to persuade

Glaswegians to accept the fact that St Patrick had his roots on

Clydeside as it has been to bring Galwegians -- people from Galway --

round to this way of thinking during my own past Thirty Years a Greying.

The Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scots, published in 1885 has St

Patrick well and truly marked down as a famous Scot. The entry states:

''Patrick, Saint, the celebrated apostle of Ireland was born near the

town of Dumbarton, in the west of Scotland, about the year 372 of the

Christian era.''

His father, whose name was Calpurnius, was a magistrate in the town

where he lived, but it's not certain whether this was Duntocher,

Dumbarton or Old Kilpatrick. ''One of the three, however, it is presumed

it must have been, as it is described as being situated in the

north-west part of the Roman province; but though various biographers of

the saint have assigned each of these towns as his birthplace,

conjecture has decided in favour of Kilpatrick,'' says the dictionary.

It adds: ''His father is supposed to have come to Scotland in a civil

capacity with the Roman troops under Theodosius. His mother, whose name

was Cenevessa, was a sister or niece of St Martin, Bishop of Tours; and

from this circumstance it is presumed that his family were Christians.''

The original name of Patrick is said to have been Succat or Succach,

supposed to have some relation to Succoth, the name at the time of his

birth of an estate not far from his birthplace, owned by the late Sir

Ilay Campbell. The name of Patricius, or Patrick, was not assumed by the

saint ''until he became invested with the clerical character''.

When he was just 16 years old St Patrick was taken prisoner -- some

stories say he was fishing from a rock at Dunglass, near Bowling, at the

time. Along with his two sisters, a band of wild Irish raiders carried

him over to Ulster where he was made a slave of a petty king in Antrim.

There he remained for six or seven years before escaping to France

where he joined his uncle in Tours, and became a priest. He worked there

until he was 60, always harbouring the notion that he might one day

return to Ireland to convert the people to Christianity.

Having studied under St Germanus, and having been made a bishop by

Pope Celestine, Patrick set out about the year 432 -- about the same

time as Palladius, who embarked on a similar mission, and with whom he

is sometimes confused -- for Ireland via Wales.

Remarkably, the southern Irish drove him back at Wicklow and he sailed

up the coast to Ulster where the reception is said to have been more

favourable.

Soon afterwards he founded his monastery at Downpatrick and from there

he launched his mission out across the country. During this time,

according to the dictionary, he paid frequent visits to the Western

Isles ''with the view of disseminating there the doctrines which he

taught''.

Aged over 80, he returned to Scotland where he died and was buried six

years later, although the place of his interment is disputed. ''The most

probable account is that he died and was buried at Kilpatrick -- this,

indeed, appears all but certain from many circumstances, not the least

remarkably corroborative of which is the name of the place itself, which

signifies, the word being a Gaelic compound, the burial place of

Patrick,'' the dictionary adds.

Support for this, if this is necessary, comes from The History of the

Parish of Kilpatrick by John Bruce. He concurs, in greater detail, with

all that's said in the dictionary.

He says that the dedications to St Patrick in the Dumbarton area were

once numerous, and in the castle at Dumbarton Rock a chapel was

dedicated to him from a very ancient date.

Soon, however, St Patrick's star may rise again in a Scottish context.

Dunbartonshire Enterprise is at the very early stages of looking at an

ancient history project on the site of the old Denny's shipyard, next

door to Dumbarton Rock.

The Roman associations with the Antonine Wall through Bearsden and

Duntocher to Dumbarton Rock itself will be be part of this. Something is

bound to be made of St Patrick and his connections with Clydeside.

Perhaps one day we will have Irish pilgrims drowning the shamrock in

Dumbarton?