Saint Patrick & Names along the Antonine wall

[MonsGraupius]

The Antonine wall was a former area of Roman colonisation.

Was it, though? I don't know of any Roman coloniae north of Hadrian's Wall. A few of the Antonine Wall forts had vici - Castlecary did, I think - but they were only occupied for a short period of time in the 2nd century. Coin evidence tells us only that the Romans had trade links with the area.

By "Colonised" I using it colloquially as in "settled", but it is worth nothing that two place names hint at Roman colonies: Colonia and Colanica

The Antonine was first colonised in the Time of Agricola, then by Antonine, Severus was also there. These however are the campaigns we know about so there could be others. The coin evidence around Glasgow doesn't show a spike in the 2nd century and then nothing after as you might expect if the area were only Romanised for a short time, but instead the coins show a continuance throughout the Roman period, and indeed there are more later coins. Then you have many coin hoards from the time of Severus like Bernia in Moray and the Traprain law hoard (with Christian icons) and the picture is one of continual contact.  

it would be a place that those wishing to leave the Roman empire would go to... I think if I were a Christian living in St.Albans at that period I would be considering moving elsewhere.

Albanus was a military martyr, executed for refusing his military oath iirc, and if he existed at all he probably died under Severus. Crucially, he is the only known Roman martyr from Britain - and there are very few from northern Gaul either. The various persecutions of the 2nd and 3rd centuries were not enforced to any degree in Britain or the west: Constantius Chlorus was believed to be sympathetic to Christians anyway, and only took the mildest steps against them in AD303-304 (removing the doors of churches, for example).

So I suggest there would be no reason for any Christians in the west to flee from imperial persecution, and certainly not for them to cross the frontier into barbarian country (however 'friendly' the barbarians!).

St. Alban is traditionally believed to have been beheaded in the Roman city of Verulamium (modern St Albans). He is believed to be the martyr referred to in the c396 Victricius's De Laude Sanctorum (The Praise of Saints), who, "in the hands of the executioners told rivers to draw back, lest he should be delayed in his haste." Saint Patrick's grandfather, Potitus, was a priest. The Irish annals date Patrick's arrival in Ireland at 432 when he was 16. His father, Calpurnius, must have been born in the 4th century making his grandfather a young man at the time that St. Alban is likely to have been martyred. In his grandfather's position, as a priest, would you stay around to suffer a similar fate? But, the Roman empire stretched from Africa to Scotland, so where could you go in Britain, except north toward Strathclyde or perhaps to Ireland?

"...in the town of Bannaventa Berniae, for he had a little villa nearby, where I conceded capture..."

The 'little villa' (villula) is quite telling too - wherever this Bannauem place was, it had to have (in the early-mid 5th century) not only an established Christian clergy, with priests and deacons, and civic structure, with decurions, but also to be sufficiently settled as to support small villa estates (evidence for which is almost nonexistent in the far north). I really don't think the Romanised fringe around Strathclyde would have boasted such things.

All this points towards a settled, secure and Romanised district - precisely the sort of place Irish sea raiders would have wanted to plunder, of course!

And what is the Latin word for a typical iron age estate?

Unless you have proof for the Romans using another word to refer to native estates, you really have to accept that they could & would use Latin words in a Latin text to refer to places that were not Roman. So you cannot argue the use of Latin word in a Latin text necessarily means that what is being referred to COULD ONLY BE Roman.

To give an obvious example: some now use the word "Farmstead" to refer to Iron-age farms. Does this mean they called them "Farmsteads" and spoke English? Or is it conceivable that they might have been called something very different, and that we use one of the available words in our language to refer to something that we know almost certainly was referred to by a different word?

I've not seen anyone who doesn't suggest Mumrills is Volitanio.

It seems to me that you're doing two different things with this subject. On the one hand, engaging in the old antiquarian quest for names of places mentioned in ancient sources - which seems fairly uncontroversial, although without direct evidence it's always going to be guesswork - and on the other hand the old antiquarian quest for St Patrick's birthplace. Using one hypothetical answer to support another hypothetical answer might make for a neat 'solution', but the whole thing remains entirely... hypothetical.

Nothing you have put forward has shown me to be wrong in any point. Whilst I might accept your point about "Antiquarians", if I were suggesting one name on its own, the three successive names of:

(6)Medio=Bal-muildy,
(7)Nemeton=Nemthus=Old Kilpatrick=The Seventh & last fort on the Antonine wall and
(8)Dumbarton = Sub-dobiadon,

is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY to occur by mere chance - which is what you are really saying.

In contrast what is the evidence for all the absurd suggestions of St. Patrick's Birthplace which are given CONTRARY the evidence he was born in Strathclyde? It's that - after you've totally changed around what is written - that ONE PLACE out of SEVERAL HUNDRED sounds similar, despite the fact there is NOTHING ELSE to connect with St. Patrick. If that isn't just cherry picking a chance coincidence then what is?

We are told that Patrick was born in Strathclyde. We are told he was born at Nemthur. Nemthur matches Nemeton at Old Kilpatrick. The two names (before and after) also fit. If that is not a compelling argument for assigning the names, then I don't know what would count.