Early Landings

Wicklow Town probably began as a promontory fort on the headland where the ruins of Black Castle now stand. Below it is Travelahawk cove where the first Christian missionaries to Ireland landed or tried to land.

St Patrick is the one usually mentioned and gets his name on the tourist information board on the cliff over the beach. However Palladius and his companions were probably earlier and they at least got to disembark.  

However as Wicklow’s Irish name, Cill Mhantáin (the Cell of Mhantan) indicates it was Mhantan who made the lasting impression.

Mhantan came to Ireland with Patrick. His original name is forgotten because his nickname survives. When Patrick’s group attempted to land at Travelahawk cove the locals under their king Nathi (who had previously rejected Palladius) met them with a shower of stones. One struck Mhantan in the mouth and he lost his teeth as a result. When Patrick pushed off and proceed up north the toothless victim of the stoning was christened ‘Mhantan’ which means ‘Gubby’ or ‘Gap Toothed.’

Once he was established in the North Patrick instructed Mhantan to ‘go back to Wicklow and convert the wicked low people there’. He did and this time they liked him so much they gave his name to the town.

Later when the Vikings came they showed no respect for anything Irish so they called the area ‘Wicklow’ from two Scandinavian words meaning ‘the bay of the meadows’.

I walked across the town from the beach to Church Hill. It stands on a low hill above the Vartry River and looks like the ideal site for Mhantan to base his community. This is the commonly accepted view but there are other opinions.

The patron of the ‘church on the hill’ is also recorded as St Livinius -  an early bishop of Dublin who later went to Flanders. Another reference I came cross states, ‘St Mhantan established his church at Wicklow Town, which was second in importance to that of St Molibbo or Molibba’s church which is situated in the middle of the graveyard on Church Hill.’

There is also a local tradition that Mhantan’s church lay between the Courthouse in the town and the corner of New Street and Main Street. However it may just be recalling a simple church that stood there in Penal Days.

If Patrick had landed at Wicklow he might have had the town and county named after him. However today only the local Catholic church, built as late as 1840, carries his name. An early description of it said, ‘Viewed from Church Hill, it looks like a continental cathedral, and the interior decorations are very artistic, a special feature of which is the beautiful ceiling’.

But where is Mhantan’s church? The renovated 1650 COI church on Church Hill, which looks across the town to St Patrick’s, now avoids claiming any patron saint and just calls itself ‘Wicklow Parish Church’.