Banna as the Home of St. Patrick (A Repost)

A great deal of controversy still exists over the whereabouts of the home of the famous Saint Patrick.  I will not here go over the various candidates, none of which have convinced the scholarly community.  Instead, I will make my case for just one of these candidates, as I think new evidence can be provided in support of it.

We are told that the saint was born at ‘uico [vico – “town”] bannauem taburniae (variants taberniae, thaburinde), ‘where three roads meet’ and that this place is ‘near the western sea’.  This town is otherwise known as Uentre (variants Nentriae, Nemthur).

It has long been recognized that the form ‘bannauem taberniae’, i.e. bannaven taberniae, shows an incorrect division of this place-name.  Instead, it should read

Banna Venta Berniae

Venta is best defined thusly (from “Brittonic Language in the Old North”, The Scottish Place-Name Society):

“In all the cases mentioned, a sense ‘a market, a trading-place’ is quite plausible, but the apparent similarity to Latin vendere, ‘to sell’ and its Vernacular Latin and Romance derivatives is probably misleading. Both *Bannaventa and *Glannoventa, as topographical names, might incorporate the suffix seen in the river-names above, or be based on lost river-names with that suffix. Nevertheless, Sims-Williams in APN p119 includes *Bannaventa and *Glannoventa along with the Venta group, under the sense ‘market’.”

Banna’s etymology is as follows (also from “Brittonic Language in the Old North”):

“Non-IE *ban-, *ben- > Early Celtic *banno/ā- > Brittonic, Gaulish banno/ā-, also Gaulish benno- (in place-names) > Old Welsh bann- > (in place-name Banngolau AC s.s. 874) > middle - modern Welsh ban > middle Cornish ba[d]n > Cornish ban (see CPNE p. 16), Old Breton bann > modern Breton ban; Irish, Gaelic benn > (and Gaelic, manx beinn).

Primarily, 'a horn, prong, antler-time', so also 'a drinking-horn, a sounding-horn'. In Celtic place-names generally 'a point, promontary, spur', and in Brittonic and Pritenic place-names 'summit, top', a use which shaped the Gaelic and manx development of the dative (locative) singular beinn to an independent noun, especially in hill-names.: see G. Barrow in Uses, p. 56 (however, given the rarity of ban[n] in surviving hill-names, the influence of unrelated pen[n] may also have been a factor).

To me, it is fairly obvious that 'Uentre', first found in the Life by Muirchu, is merely a duplication in slightly corrupt form of Venta.  Venta as 'market town' is a sort of Celtic substitution for Latin vicus, which has come down to us through Anglo-Saxon as wic or wick, 'market town'.

The Roman fort of Banna on the western end of Hadrian's Wall has often been pointed to as this particular Bannaventa (since the one in central England is not near the sea).  The vicus or civilian settlement that surrounded the fort was quite large, so there is no problem with the vicus/venta portion of the name.

The problem is the 'Berniae', which no one has been able to make anything sensible out of.  This is plainly a reference to the Tyne Gap,  a narrow but distinct corridor running east-west through a lowlying gap between the uplands of the Pennines visible to north and south.  The Gap spans the distance from the Tyne in the east to the Irthing in the west, and Banna/Birdoswald is right there at the western end of the Gap.   Current thought on the origin of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom name Bernicia (see John Koch's entry for Bryneich in CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA) is to derive it from the Celtic, i.e., *Bernacci/Bernaccia, ‘people/land of the gap(s).’

From the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language on the Irish word for 'gap':

bern
berna beirn berne bearn Bernai bernad bearnaidh bearna

Keywords: Gap; breach; pass; defile; position; defence; attack; refuge; breach; occupied; warrior; undefended; weak; position; defence; attack; position; danger; strait; fight; gap; break; flaw; drinking-horn; ungapped
Letter: B
COLUMN: 83
Line: 014
bern
ā, f. also berna iā, d and n. as. B. Chon Culaind,  RC viii 54.20  ( LL 13397 ). ds. b.¤,  Sitzb. , v 93 § 30 , beirn,  LL 17995 , gs. berne,  FM v 1636.9 . bearn f.,  IGT Decl. § 39.  as. Bernai,  Corp. Gen. 206.17
gs. cacha bernad,  LL 8030.  berna f., IGT Decl. § 4.  as. bearnaidh,  Éigse xiv 98 § 29.  gs. bearna,  § 28 .

gap, breach; pass, defile; hence weak position in defence or attack: dot luid i mbernai (ar berna, v.l. ) ar-mo chenn-sa thou camest into the breach against me ,  Sc. M² 13.  is b.¤ ina coṅgaib catha a breach in their battle position ,  CRR 57.
do coimét na mbernd cumung robui ag techt aran slia[bh],  ZCP vi 56.10 . annsa mbeirn = in the gap ,  Ez. xxii 30.  aon- fhear faire re seasamh gach beárnan,  Keat. Poems 463.  nī fhūicēb-sa an b.¤ (bern-, v.l. ) sin dom c[h]onāch gan caithem,  ML² 1412.  bearna as mo ré `a part of my life-span ',  Dán Dé xvii 8 . ar bearna an bháis,  DDána 30.6 . ? berna a eric,  Laws ii 98.6  .i. ar in fechiumh nos gaibh, uair do rochuir ní di,  13 Comm.  b.¤ na ngrás gur daingen duid refuge,  IGT Decl. ex. 411.
In phrr. b.¤, berna churad, ¤míled etc.  breach made or occupied by a warrior, etc.: ruc beirnd curad . . . dar cath na nAnmarcach,  Cog. 188.23 . ra briss beirn míled i cath naṅGréc,  LL 32300  ( TTr. 1488 ). do bris b.¤ céit isin cath i n-urc[h]omair a aigthi `made a breach of a hundred ',  Fianaig. 90.30 . berna cēt,  TBC² 3672.  Phr. b.¤ báegail undefended or weak position in defence or attack: aḟágbáil ar bernadaib bǽgail nó ar doirrsib aideda,  Mer. Uil.² 99.  ni b.¤ bægail in læch fuil and `no easy victim ',  Aen. 750.  See G 7.27 . Hence b.¤ position of danger, strait; fight: iarṁbrath na mb.¤,  Rawl. 69 a 27 . suan ón bheirn `from fight ' (Vocab.),  O'Hara 2609.  re ndul san mbeirn,  Dán Dé xxv 21 . gap; break, flaw in general: (expl. Bernán Brigte, name of saint's bell) foceirt forru co mmebaid ass a bernn `its gap broke out of it ' (i.e.  a piece broke off),  Trip. 114.14 . (of a drinking-horn) sēt blāith cen beirn `ungapped',  Measgra Uí Chl. 150 § 19.  an bhearn do-cháidh san chloinnse `the gap thus broken in her family ' (by a death),  Aithd. D. 13.10 . dar bernadaib in inair sin,  Acall. 5808 n . tar beirn na luirige,  BB 435 b 46 . Compds. trias na beilgibh bernbriste dorónadh las an ordanas broken into gaps ,  FM vi 2300.2 . See berrbróc. beilge berncairrgidhe na banBhoirne,  Hugh Roe 242.13 .

Just as importantly, the early name of Patrick in Tirechan is Magonus.  The god Mogons (and variants) is found on Hadrian's Wall, especially the western half/end - where the Banna Roman fort is located.  According to Celticist John Koch, the alternative name of Patrick, Magonus, might be related to this god name.

Finally, thanks to the paper by Dr. Andrew Breeze of Pamplona ("St.Patrick's Birthplace", Wlsh Journal of Religious History, 3, 2008, pp. 58-67), I have learned of the 3rd century (?) inscription, apparently from Corbridge but now at Hexham Abbey, by a Q. Calpurnius Concessinius.  Martin Charlesworth of Cambridge noticed that this Roman-period name contained both the family names of St. Patrick, whose father was Calpurnius and mother Conchessa.  Q. was a prefect of an unnamed cavalry unit celebrating the slaughter of a tribal group called the Corionototae.  This stone thus places both of the names of Patrick's parents near the Wall, where Banna/Birdoswald is located.

Conchessa was said to be related to St. Martin of Tours.  I've elsewhere discussed how this saint came to replace Myrddin in the Scottish Lowlands.  The Black Book of Carmarthen places Errith ('specter') and Gurrith ('specter-man', the exact equivalent of Myrddin, 'specter-man') at Nevtur (Nemtur), a corrupt spelling for the venta of Bannaventa Bernia.