Killala is only 130 miles distant from Mount Slemish, as the crow
flies, the Saint would have had to travel around Slieve Gallion, and
make a circuit around the mountains of Tyrone, which stood directly
across the path of a direct route. Lough Erne, in the County of
Fermanagh, and Lough Gill, in the County of Sligo, and the inland flow
of Killala Bay would add to the obstacles to be encountered, sufficient
when all taken together to account for the 53 miles difference between
130, as the crow flies, and 183 English or 200 Roman miles which had to
be travelled before he joined his ship.

Moreover, the woods of Foclut were situated within five miles of
Killala, and St. Patrick in his "Confession" speaks in familiar terms
of the inhabitants who dwell in the neighbourhood of the woods, whose
voices sounded familiar to his ears when far away in Gaul.

This, indeed, would suggest that the Saint had made acquaintance with
them during his flight, for he distinctly states when alluding to the
place of his embarkation: "I had never been there, nor did I know any
one that lived there" ("Confession"). His acquaintance with the
inhabitants of Foclut must have been made after he had journeyed there,
and previous to his embarkation.

Readers of the "Confession" will remember how touchingly he described
the cordial manner in which he was welcomed by his relatives, who, to
use the Saint's own words, "received me as a son, and besought me that
then at least, after I had undergone so many tribulations, I should
never depart from them again. Then in the middle of the night, a man
who seemed to come from Ireland, whose name was Victoricus, the bearer
of innumerable letters, one of which he handed to me; and I read the
beginning of the letter, entitled 'The Voice of the Irish.' As I was