really suggests and almost postulates the existence of a second
Declan whose Acts and those of our Declan have become mutually
confused.

(II.) Absence of Declan's name from the Acts of Patrick is a
negative argument. It is explicable perhaps by the supposed
irregularity of Declan's preaching. Declan was certainly earlier
than Mochuda and yet there is no reference to him in the Life of the
latter saint. Ailbhe however is referred to in the Tripartite Life
of Patrick and the cases of Ailbhe and Declan are "a pari"; the two
saints stand or fall together.

(IV.) Motives for invention of the pre-Patrician myth are alleged,
scil.:--to rebut certain claims to jurisdiction, tribute or
visitation advanced by Armagh in after ages. It is hard to see
however how resistance to the claims in question could be better
justified on the theory of a pre-Patrician Declan, who admittedly
acknowledged Patrick's supremacy, than on the admission of a
post-Patrician mission.

That in Declan we have to deal with a very early Christian teacher
of the Decies there can be no doubt. If not anterior to Patrick he
must have been the latter's cotemporary. Declan however had failed
to convert the chieftain of his race and for this--reading between
the lines of the "Life"--we seem to hear Patrick blaming him.

The monuments proper of Declan remaining at Ardmore are (a) his
ORATORY near the Cathedral and Round Tower in the graveyard, (b) his
STONE on the beach, (c) his WELL on the cliff, and (d) ANOTHER STONE
said to have been found in his tomb and preserved at Ardmore for long