Declan - The Pre-Patrician Saints of Munster

The Pre-Patrician Saints of Munster

Declán is one of four Munster saints who had Lives written for them claiming that they founded monasteries and preached the Gospel in Munster before their younger contemporary St Patrick ever set foot in Ireland. These bishop saints, known since the 17th century as quattuor sanctissimi episcopi, also included Ailbe of Emly, Ciarán of Saigir and Abbán of Moyarney. The same claim was apparently made for Íbar of Beggery Island, according to the Life of St Abbán, which identifies him as Abbán's uncle and teacher, but no separate Life survives which offers any information to this effect. The relevant Lives are all found in the so-called Dublin Collection (see above), which bears a stamp of editorial intervention.

Their testimony, late though it seems, has often been treated in relation to the historical question of pre-Patrician Christianity in the south of Ireland. It has been argued that before the coming of Patrick, the south coast of Munster would have provided the most likely point of entry for the introduction of Christianity via Britain or via Gaul. The settlements of the Déisi and the Uí Liatháin in southwest Wales, as evidenced by the distribution of ogam-stones, provided an important connection between Britain and Ireland. A key aspect of this overseas link, the import of slaves, usually British Christians, by Irish raiders would have directly exposed Munster to the influence of Christianity. Further, Munster, lying opposite to Gaul, would have represented a first destination for Irish trading connections with the Continent. In the context of wine-trade, this is in some way corroborated by the archaeological record for pottery in Munster settlements.

The credit traditionally given to St Patrick for bringing Christianity to the island appears to owe much to the propaganda of one particular foundation. As early as the 7th century, Armagh was busy bolstering its claim to the status of the principal house founded by St Patrick. By promoting the cult of the saint, which entailed that Patrick was propagated as the apostle and first bishop of the Irish, it sought to establish and control a network of religious houses throughout the country. The fact that a missionary sent by Rome, Palladius, had been active before St Patrick, in 431, possibly in Leinster, did not sit well with its agenda. In the writings of Armagh scholars, notably Tírechán and Muirchu, Paladius' activities were therefore belittled as a failure, ignored or, as T.F. O'Rahilly famously argues in his hypothesis of the 'Two Patricks', silently conflated with Patrick's.

In Armagh historiography, the conversion of Munster became embodied in the story of the conversion of Óengus mac Nad Froích by St Patrick at Cashel, first told by Tírechán and subsequently elaborated many times over.

The Lives of Ailbe, Declán, Ciarán and Abbán in the Dublin Collection appear to reflect the need of the Munster houses to offer some counterweight against the Patrician dossier promoted by Armagh, even though they do not deny the national importance of St Patrick. Richard Sharpe has proposed that the earlier Life of Ailbe in the Codex Salmanticensis was originally composed in the 8th century to further the cause of the Éoganacht Church of Emly. In the same century, the Law of Ailbe (784) was issued, possibly in response to the Law of Patrick. The Dublin Collection, however, goes further when it attributes to the saints an important pre-Patrician career. Pre-eminence is given to Ailbe, whose Dublin Life asserts that Munster was entrusted to him by St Patrick, while to similar effect, Ailbe is called a "second Patrick and patron of Munster" (secundus Patricius et patronus Mumenie) in Declán's Life.

Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel has argued that this way of promoting Munster saints was anticipated in texts emanating from the Schottenklöster or Irish Benedictine monasteries of southern Germany, whose principal house was at Regensburg. Not only was there a strong Munster presence, but many such texts were written down in recognition of the generous donations received from the kings of Desmond and Thomond. The most substantial achievement is the hagiographic compilation known as Magnum Legendarium Austriacum ("The Great Austrian Legendary"), begun sometime in the 1160s or 1170s. The prologue to a recension of St Patrick's Life preserved incomplete at Göttweig (Austria) asserts that disciples of one Mansuetus, an Irish bishop of Toul, had set themselves up as bishops in Ireland to prepare the way for St Patrick. In the mid-12th century, a Life was composed at Regensburg relating the life and miracles of Ailbe, under his German name St Albert. Ó Riain-Raedel connects this to the establishment of Cashel as an archiepiscopal seat in 1111, because it was Ailbe, being the patron saint of the nearby foundation of Emly, who played a key role in advertising its new status.