ccurate on the whole and there are few inconsistencies
or none. Moreover it sheds some new light on that chronic
puzzle--organisation of the Celtic Church of Ireland. Mochuda, head of a
great monastery at Rahen, is likewise a kind of pluralist Parish Priest
with a parish in Kerry, administered in his name by deputed
ecclesiastics, and other parishes similarly administered in Kerrycurrihy,
Rostellan, West Muskerry, and Spike Island, Co. Cork. When a chief
parishioner lies seriously ill in distant Corca Duibhne, Mochuda himself
comes all the way from the centre of Ireland to administer the last rites
to the dying man, and so on.

The relations of the people to the Church and its ministers are in many
respects not at all easy to understand. Oblations, for instance, of
themselves and their territory, &c., by chieftains are frequent.
Oblations of monasteries are made in a similar way. Probably this
signifies no more than that the chief region or monastery put itself
under the saint's jurisdiction or rule or both. That there were other
churches too than the purely monastic appears from offerings to Mochuda
of already existing churches, v.g. from the Clanna Ruadhan in Decies,
&c.

Lismore, the most famous of Mochuda's foundations, became within a
century of the saint's death, one of the great monastic schools of Erin,
attracting to his halls, or rather to its boothies, students from all
Ireland and even--so it is claimed--from lands beyond the seas. King
Alfrid [Aldfrith] of Northumbria, for instance, is said to have partaken
of Lismore's hospitality, and certainly Cormac of Cashel, Malachy and
Celsus of Armagh and many others of the most distinguished of the Scots
partook thereof. The roll of Lismore's calendared saints would require,
did the matter fall within our immediate province, more than one page to
itself. Some interesting reference to Mochuda and his holy city occur
in the Life of one of his disciples, St. Colman Maic Luachain, edited
for the R.I.A. by Professor Kuno Meyer.

There are many indications in the present Life that, at one period, and
in the time of Carthach, the western boundary of Decies extended far
beyond the line at present recognised. Similar indications are furnished
by the martyrologies, &c.; for instance, the martyrology of Donegal
under November 28th records of "the three sons of Bochra" that "they are
of Archadh Raithin in Ui Mic Caille in Deisi Mumhan" and Ibid, p.
xxxvii, it is st