St Patrick, pointing at the ground

Recent ecclesiastical papers released under the 1500 year rule at Trinity College in Dublin have revealed that St Patrick admitted he had his work cut out making Tyrone natives to give up their Pagan ways and embrace Christianity, predominately in Newmills, Pomeroy and Brackaville.

Written in Latin, St Patrick penned a letter to a mate in Wales detailing his frustration and exasperation at the heathen way of life in and around Brackaville and at once stage remarked that it’d be ‘easier to take the wet from water than to get them boys to pray even for a second’. Latin expert, Dr Patrick Mossey, translated his first short letter in its entirety:

Dear Alad,

This is turning out to be some handling. Converting Ardboe was tough. They worshipped the pollan fish before I arrived. A man fired a dog at me through the window of a pub in Coagh. But none of that compares to the troubles I’m having in Brackaville. These people are something else, lad. Twice I’ve tried to preach from the hill on the Derryvale Road and it’d be going well initially. Then a shower of women from Edendork would arrive and the orgies would start. I’d be shouting over the mass of bare arses. Deadly annoying, Alad.

They still sacrifice things there y’know. Wolves, deer, Armagh people. I’m thinking of calling it a day and hoping the Coalisland ones marry into this area, bringing their more refined ways with them. Ach I’ll miss the craic a bit at Campbell’s shebeen but God didn’t send me to gulp down the black stuff in Brackaville.

Yours, Patrick.

Although little evidence remains in Brackaville of St Patrick’s failed attempt to Christianise the area, some of the older members of the community do remember something of a boy called Patrick who tried to do something here but admit that might have been the lignite man they ignored in 1984.