Early Christian

With the collapse of the Roman Empire in the late 4th Century, Christianity became the standard-bearer of Western civilization.

Soon after the collapse of the Roman Empire, an Irish tribe, the Deisi, from County Meath in Ireland, migrated to Pembrokeshire under their leader, Eochaid Allmuir, and established a royal dynasty that was to rule in south-west Wales for some five centuries.

They provided the first written records in the form of inscribed stones bearing the names of those who were considered worthy of commemoration. The writing was in Latin or in ogham, an Irish alphabet designed for ease of cutting on the edge of a stone pillar. Many of these stones have been rescued and placed in churches or churchyards for safe keeping, as at Brawdy, Mathry, Maenclochog and Cilgerran. A stone in St Dogmael's church, used in decoding the ogham alphabet, has in Latin 'Sagarani fili Cunotami' with the ogham 'Sagrani maqi Cunatami', commemorating one Sagranus son of Cunotamus. The Goidelic maqi, from which `mac' derives, would have been map or ap if Sagranus had been a Welshman.

Pembrokeshire lay on the route of the Celtic saints, as the early missionaries were known, who travelled between Ireland and Rome or Jerusalem. It also had its own saint, David, born at St. David's to St Non, who is remembered by a chapel and a well above St Non's Bay. David was so revered that his shrine became a place of pilgrimage to the extent that two visits to St. David's cathedral equalled one to Rome.

For further information about religous sites in Pembrokeshire, click here.