“ On the morrow however Declan came to Cashel and talked with Aonghus. The king welcomed him heartily and addressing him said to him in presence of persons of his court, "I pray you, Declan, servant of God, that in the name of Christ you would raise to life for me the seven hostages whom I held in bondage from the chieftains of Munster. They have died from the plague of which you hear, and I fear their fathers will raise war and rebellion against me, for they are men of strength and power, and indeed we are ashamed of their death, for they will say that it is we ourselves who killed them." ”

“ I have ordained him a priest and (his) grace is manifest in many ways." "What recompense do you desire for your labour?" asked the king. "Only," replied Carthach, "that you would place yourself and your posterity under the spiritual jurisdiction of this young priest, the servant of God." The king, however, hesitated—because of Mochuda's youth. Soon as Carthach perceived this he himself inclined to Mochuda and bending his knee before him exclaimed:—"I hereby give myself, my parish and monastery to God and to Mochuda for ever." ”

“ One day when there was a large meeting of people at a certain place in Kerry, the men and women who were present saw descending a fiery globe, which rested on the head of Mochuda's mother, at that time pregnant of the future saint. The ball of fire did no one any injury but disappeared before it did injury to anyone. All those who beheld this marvel wondered thereat and speculated what it could portend. ”

“ On another occasion two British monks of Mochuda's monastery had a conversation in secret. Mochuda, they said, is very old though there is no immediate appearance of approaching death—and there is no doubt that his equal in virtue or good works will never be found—therefore if he were out of the way one of us might succeed him. Let us then kill him as there is no likelihood of his natural death within a reasonable time. ”

“ An angel came from heaven to Mochuda at the time and told him that the well should remain a source of health and virtues and of marvels, and it still, like every well originally blessed by Mochuda, possesses power of healing from every malady. ”

“ Mochuda, with his following, next visited the cross already mentioned and here, turning to the king, he thus addressed him:—"Behold the heavens above you and the earth below." The king looked at them: then Mochuda continued:—"Heaven may you not possess and even from your earthly principality may you soon be driven and your brother whom you have reproached, because he would not lay hands on me, shall possess it instead of you, and in your lifetime. You shall be despised by all—so much so that in your brother's house they shall forget to supply you with food. ”

“ Clan, or tribe, rivalry was doubtless one of the things which made for the invention and multiplication of miracles. If the patron of the Decies is credited with a miracle, the tribesmen of Ossory must go one better and attribute to their tribal saint a marvel more striking still. The hagiographers of Decies retort for their patron by a claim of yet another miracle and so on. It is to be feared too that occasionally a less worthy motive than tribal honour prompted the imagination of our Irish hagiographers—the desire to exploit the saint and his honour for worldly gain. ”

“ When Declan with his disciples arrived in Rome Ailbe received him with great affection and gladness and he bore testimony before the Roman people to his (Declan's) sanctity of life and nobility of blood. He (Declan) therefore received marks of honour and sincere affection from the people and clergy of Rome when they came to understand how worthy he was, for he was comely, of good appearance, humble in act, sweet in speech, prudent in counsel, frank in conversation, virtuous in mien, generous in gifts, holy in life and resplendent in miracles. ”

“ No Irish saint perhaps has so strong a local hold as Declan or has left so abiding a popular memory. Nevertheless his period is one of the great disputed questions of early Irish history. According to the express testimony of his Life, corroborated by testimony of the Lives of SS. Ailbhe and Ciaran, he preceded St. Patrick in the Irish mission and was a co-temporary of the national apostle. Objection, exception or opposition to the theory of Declan's early period is based less on any inherent improbability in the theory itself than on contradictions and inconsistencies in the Life. ”

“ That night Mochuda remained without entertainment although it was offered to them by Cronan who had prepared supper for him. Mochuda refused however to go to it saying that he would not go out of his way to visit a man who avoids guests and builds his cell in a wild bog far from men and that such a man's proper guests are creatures of the wilderness instead of human beings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lismore is a renowned city, for there is one portion of it which no woman may enter and there are within it many chapels and monasteries, and in which there are always multitudes of devout people not from Ireland alone but from the land of the Saxons and from Britain and from other lands as well. This is its situation—on the south bank of the Avonmore in the Decies territory.
On a certain day there came a druid to Mochuda to argue and contend with him. He said:—"If you be a servant of God cause natural fruit to grow on this withered branch." ”

“ Declan answered the king, saying to him:—"Such a matter as this—to raise one to life from death—belongs to Omnipotence alone—but I shall do whatever is in my power. I go where the bodies lie and pray to God for them and let Him do in their regard what seems best to Him." Next, Declan, with a multitude and his disciples together with the king's councillors, went to the place where the corpses of the young men lay. ”

“ We have a Latin Life only of some saints, and Irish Life only of others, and of others again we have a Latin Life and an Irish. It may be necessary to add the Acts which have been translated into Latin by Colgan or the Bollandists do not of course rank as Latin Lives. Whether the Latin Lives proper are free translations of the Irish Lives or the Irish Lives translations of Latin originals remains still, to a large extent, an open question. Plummer ("Vitae SSm. Hib.," Introd.) seems to favour the Latin Lives as the originals. ”

“ Subsequent to Mochuda's foundation of Rahen his miracles and the marvels he wrought spread his fame far and wide through Ireland and through Britain, and multitudes came to him from various parts of those countries to give themselves to the service of God under his guidance. In the beginning he refused worldly gifts from others although his church was honoured and patronised by neighbouring kings and chieftains who offered him lands and cattle and money and many other things. Mochuda kept his monks employed in hard labour and in ploughing the ground for he wanted them to be always humble. ”

“ Blathmac had a large family of sons and daughters but, owing to Mochuda's curse, their race became extinct. Next to the prince of Cluain Earaird who also had seized him by the hand, he said: "You shall be a servant and a bondman ere you die and you shall lose your territory and your race will be a servile one." To another of those who led him by the hand he said:—"What moved you to drag me by the hand from my own monastery?" The other replied:—"It pleased me not that a Munster man should have such honour in Meath." ”

“ Another jealousy too is suggested—the mutual distrust of north and south which has been the canker-worm of Irish political life for fifteen hundred years, making intelligible if not justifying the indignation of a certain distinguished Irishman who wanted to know the man's name, in order to curse its owner, who first divided Ireland into two provinces. ”

“ There were in Ireland before Patrick came thither four holy bishops with their followers who evangelized and sowed the word of God there; these are the four:—Ailbe, Bishop Ibar, Declan, and Ciaran. They drew multitudes from error to the faith of Christ, although it was Patrick who sowed the faith throughout Ireland and it is he who turned chiefs and kings of Ireland to the way of baptism, faith and sacrifice and everlasting judgment. ”

“ Mochuda refused for a long while, as we have already said, to accept cattle or horses from anyone; it was the monks themselves who dug and cultivated the land and they did all the haulage of the monastery on their own backs. St. Fionan however who was a kinsman of Mochuda and had just returned from Rome, came at this time on a visit to the monastery. He reproached Mochuda saying: "Mochuda, why do you impose the burden of brute beasts upon rational beings? Is it not for use of the latter that all other animals have been created? ”

“ As soon as Mochuda saw the hardship to the visiting brothers and elders of the descent from Lismore and the ascent thereto again—knowing at the same time that his end was approaching—he ordered himself to be carried up to the monastery so that the monks might be saved the fatigue of the descent to him. Then it pleased God to call to Himself His devoted servant from the troubles of life and to render to him the reward of his good works. ”

“ Mochuda returned home, where he remained till the fifth day, when, seeing that Colman had not arrived he came again to the latter. "Father," said he, "why have you not kept your promise?" To which Colman replied, "I came and an angel with me that day and consecrated your cemetery. Return now and you will find it marked (consecrated) on the south side of your own cell. Lay it out as it is there indicated and think not that its area is too small, because a larger will be consecrated for you later, by the angels, in the southern part of Erin, namely—in Lismore." ”

“ The wife of Maolochtair, scil:—Cuciniceas, daughter of Failbhe Flann, king of Munster, had a vision, viz.:—a flock of very beautiful birds flying above her head and one bird was more beautiful and larger than the rest. The other birds followed this one and it nestled in the king's bosom. Soon as she awoke she related the vision to the king; the king observed: "Woman you have dreamed a good dream and soon it will be realised; the flock of birds you have seen is Mochuda with his monks coming from Rahen and the most distinguished bird is Mochuda himself. ”

“ Neither these wretched men themselves nor anyone of their nation shall be my coarb for ever, but my successors shall be of his race through whom God has rescued me. Moreover my city shall never be without men of the British race who will be butts and laughing-stocks and serve no useful purpose." The person who saved Mochuda was of the Ciarraighe race and it is of that same people that the coarbs and successors of Mochuda have commonly been ever since. ”

“ Occasionally a second Life is found differing essentially from the first, but, as a rule, the different copies are only recensions of a single original. Some of the MSS. are parchment but the majority are in paper; some Lives again are merely fragments and no doubt scores if not hundreds of others have been entirely lost. Of many hundreds of our Irish saints we have only the meagre details supplied by the martyrologies, with perhaps occasional reference to them in the Lives of other saints. ”

“ The chief published collections of Irish Saints' Lives may be set down as seven, scil.:—five in Latin and one each in Irish and English. The Latin collections are the Bollandists', Colgan's, Messingham's, Fleming's, and Plummer's; the Irish collection is Stokes' ("Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore") and the English is of course O'Hanlon's.
Most striking, probably, of the characteristics of the "Lives" is their very evident effort to exalt and glorify the saint at any cost. With this end of glorification in view the hagiographer is prepared to swallow everything and record anything. ”

“ He received a vow from each to follow his Rule, for he was the support of the aged, the health-giver to the weak, the consoler of the afflicted, the hope-giver to the hopeless, the faith-giver to the doubting, the moderator and uniter of the young. ”