I.--Patrick's apparent avoidance the Lives of St. Patrick.
of the Principality of Decies. III.--Prosper's testimony to the
III.--The peculiar Declan cult and mission of Palladius as first
the strong local hold which bishop to the believing Scots.
Declan has maintained. IV.--Alleged motives for later
invention of Pre-Patrician story.

In this matter and at this hour it is hardly worth appealing to the
authority of Lanigan and the scholars of the past. Much evidence not
available in Lanigan's day is now at the service of scholars. We are to
look rather at the reasoning of Colgan, Ussher, and Lanigan than to the
mere weight of their names.

Referring in order to our tabulated grounds of argument, pro and con,
and taking the pro arguments first, we may (I.) discard as evidence for
our purpose the Life of St. Ibar which is very fragmentary and otherwise
a rather unsatisfactory document. The Lives of Ailbhe, Ciaran, and
Declan are however mutually corroborative and consistent. The
Roman visit and the alleged tutelage under Hilarius are probably
embellishments; they look like inventions to explain something and they
may contain more than a kernel of truth. At any rate they are matters
requiring further investigation and elucidation. In this connection it
may be useful to recall that the Life (Latin) of St. Ciaran has been
attributed by Colgan to Evinus the disciple and panegyrist of St.
Patrick.

Patrick's apparent neglect of the Decies (II.) may have no special
significance. At best it is but negative evidence: taken, however, in
connection with (I.) and its consectaria it is suggestive. We can
hardly help speculating why the apostle--passing as it were by its
front door--should have given the go-bye to a region so important as the
Munster Decies. Perhaps he sent preachers into it; perhaps there was no
special necessity for a formal mission, as the faith had already
found entrance. It is a little noteworthy too that we do not find St.
Patrick's name surviving in any ecclesiastical connection with the
Decies, if we except Patrick's Well, near Clonmel, and this Well is
within a mile or so of the territorial frontier. Moreover the southern
portion of the present Tipperary County had been ceded by Aengus to the
Deisi, only just previous to Patrick's advent, and had hardly yet had
sufficient time to become absorbed. The whole story