St. Declan - Sources

Sources

The main source for Declán's life and cult is a Latin Life or vita, which however, survives only in a redaction of the late 12th century. It is witnessed by two manuscript texts which Charles Plummer has shown to derive from the same original: (1) Dublin, TCD, MS E.3.11 (dubbed T by Plummer), f. 66b-71d; and (2) a somewhat more damaged version in Dublin, Primate Marsh's Library, MS V.3.4 (Plummer's M), f. 101 ff. These two manuscripts are also collectively known as the Dublin Collection (or the Codex Kilkenniensis, though the name is also used to refer to the Primate Marsh's Library manuscript only). In its received form, the Life leans heavily on the Life of St Ailbe of Emly in the Codex Salmanticensis, but earlier materials may have been incorporated. The introductory chapters draw on early Irish sagas, notably the origin legend of Déisi related in the Expulsion of the Déisi and the story of Lugaid Riab nDerg in Aided Meidbe and Medb's Three Husbands. Declán is emphatically designated as a bishop of the Déisi, which appears to echo the monastery's political ambitions in the 12th century, when the Irish Church was reformed into a diocesan system (see the Synod of Rathbreasail and Synod of Kells). Ardmore aspired to the status of episcopal see in the new diocese, but the privilege went instead to Lismore, founded by St Mochuda.

Declán's Latin Life was later translated into Irish. This vernacular version, sometimes referred to as Betha Decclain, is preserved in two classes of copies. The earliest of these is a copy made, with some revision, by Mícheál Ó Cléirigh in 1629 and catalogued as Brussels, Royal Library, MS 4190-4200. Ó Cléirigh reports that his ultimate source was an "old book" (seinleabhar), but his direct exemplar was a manuscript dated 1582, in the possession of Eochaidh Ui Ifernain (Eochy O'Heffernan). The two remaining copies are Dublin, Royal Irish Academy MS 23 M 50, pp 109–120, in the hand of one John Murphy "na Raheenach" and dated 1740, and a further manuscript once in private possession. The exemplar which underlies either of these is itself an imperfectly transmitted text.

Genealogies relevant to the saint are included in the Book of Leinster, Leabhar Breac, Book of Ballymote, a gloss to Félire Óengusso, and Rawlinson B 502.