166 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



slighter kind, in the Tirerrill passage. The singular aeclessiam, 

 introducing four churches, is curious ; and Dr. Stokes, feeling this, 

 was led to. suggest aeclessias quatuor. But aeclessiam seems to me not 

 to he a textual error, but to let out a secret of compilation. As 

 I have said, Tirechan was here using a written source ; he used it 

 both for the Mathona passage and for the Tirerrill passage. "Why did 

 he think of using it for the Mathona passage ? The obvious conjecture 

 is that it mentioned Mathona in connexion withTamnach. This con- 

 jecture at once supplies the explanation of the singular aeclessiam. 

 In the sotu'ce, the woxdiS fimdauit aeclessiam liberam ibi, id est Tamnach 

 (or hiTamnuch), were followed by a notice of Mathona's association 

 with that community, after which the foundations of the other 

 chui'ches (Echenach, &c.) were enumerated. But Tirechan had 

 worked the notice of Mathona into his account of Shankill and 

 Rodanus ; and, consequently, he dropped it out wlien he came to speak 

 of the communities of Tirerrill. But in doing so, he left the aeclessiam 

 (which in his soui'ce applied only to Tamnach), although he added, in 

 dependence on the same verb, the names of three other foundations. 



§ 7. Prom Elphin and Shankill, Patrick went on to Rath Croclian, 

 seven or eight miles to the south-west (SHao) ; and there I mustleav* 

 him. 



The two things which I liave endeavoured to do in the fore- 

 going pages ai'e (1) to identify the place at which, according to 

 Tirechan's memoir, Patrick crossed the Shannon ; and (2) to show 

 that — assuming the author's statements as to Patrick's doings in Con- 

 naught to be more or less authentic — we are forced to infer that, in 

 putting together his material, he has worked into the frame of 

 one visit events which must have belonged to different visits ; because 

 he has unwittingly left certain implications which betray this uncon- 

 scious contamination. 



But the suggestion that the events of more than one expedition to 

 Connaught have been confused and conbined in the narrative of 

 Tfrechan admits of a clearer and more trenchant demonstration, 

 which touches the whole plan of his memoir. The motive of the 

 circular tour which the writer describes is represented to have been 

 the meeting of Patrick with the sons of Amolngaid. It was arranged 

 by Endae, one of these brethren, and Patrick that they should travel 

 together to Endae's country in north-western Connaught, to establish 

 the Christian faith in those regions. But the route followed by 

 Patrick is quite inconsistent with this motive. In the first place, he 

 spends a long time in missionary or ecclesiastical work in Meath 



