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 of Declan's alleged
relations with Patrick undoubtedly suggests some irregularity in Declan's
mission--an irregularity which was capable of rectification through
Patrick and which de facto was finally so rectified.

(III.) No one in Eastern Munster requires to be told how strong is the
cult of St. Declan throughout Decies and the adjacent territory. It is
hardly too much to say that the Declan tradition in Waterford and Cork is
a spiritual actuality, extraordinary and unique, even in a land which
till recently paid special popular honour to its local saints. In
traditional popular regard Declan in the Decies has ever stood first,
foremost, and pioneer. Carthage, founder of the tribal see, has held and
holds in the imagination of the people only a secondary place. Declan,
whencesoever or whenever he came, is regarded as the spiritual father to
whom the Deisi owe the gift of faith. How far this tradition and the
implied belief in Declan's priority and independent mission are derived
from circulation of the "Life" throughout Munster in the last few
centuries it is difficult to gauge, but the tradition seems to have
flourished as vigorously in the days of Colgan as it does to-day.
Declan's "pattern" at Ardmore continues to be still the most noted
celebration of its kind in Ireland. A few years ago it was participated