the see of Clogher.

"'Et addidit, [Patricius] Accipo, inquit, baculum itineris mei, quo
ego membra mea sustento et scrinium in quo de sanctorum Apostolorum
reliquiis, et de sanctae Mariae capillis, et sancta Grace Domini, et
sepulchro ejus, et aliis reliquiis sanctis continentur. Quibus dictis
dimisit cum osculo pacis paterna fultum benedictione.'--_Colgan, Vit. S.
Macaerthenni_ (24 Mart.) Acta SS. p. 738.

"From this passage we learn one great-cause of the sanctity in which
this reliquary was held, and of the uses of the several recesses for
reliques which it presents. It also explains the historical _rilievo_
on the top--the figure of St. Patrick presenting the Domnach to St.
Mac-Carthen.

"4. In Jocelyn's Life of St. Patrick (cap. 143) we have also a notice to
the same effect, but in which the Domnach is called a _Chrismatorium_,
and the relics are not specified--in all probability because they were
not then appended to it.

"In these authorities there is evidently much appearance of the Monkish
frauds of the middle ages; but still they are evidences of the tradition
of the country that such a gift had been made by Patrick to Mac-Carthen.
And as we advance higher in chronological authorities, we find the
notice of this gift stripped of much of its acquired garb of fiction,
and related with more of the simplicity of truth.

"5. In the life of St. Patrick called the Tripartite, usually ascribed
to St. Evin, an author of the seventh century, and which, even in its
present interpolated state, is confessedly prior to the tenth, there
is the following remarkable passage (as translated by Colgan from the
original Irish) relative to the gift of the Domnach from the Apostle of
Ireland to St. Mac-Carthen, in which it is expressly described under the
very same appellation which it still bears.

"' Aliquantis ergo evolutis diebus _Mac-Caertennum_, sive _Caerthennum_
Episcopuin prsefecit sedi Episcopali Clocherensi, ab Ardmacha regni
Metropoli haud multum distanti: et apud eum reliquit argenteum quoddam
reliquiarium _Domnach-airgidh_ vulgo nuncupatum; quod viro Dei, in
Hiberniam venienti, ccelitus missum erat.'--_VII. Vita S. Patricii_,
Lib. in. cap. 3, _Tr. Th._ p. 149.

"This passage is elsewhere given by Colgan, with a slight change of
words in the translation.

"In this version, which is unquestionably prior to all the others,
we find the Domnach distinguished by the appellation of _Airgid_--an
addition which was