Muirchu belonged to that part of Ireland which had conformed to Roman usage since c. A.D. 634, and in this interest he took part in Adamnan’s Synod which brought about the conformity of the north. It would indeed be erroneous to suppose that these facts are required to explain the expression which he uses of the Roman see (caput omnium ecclesiarum totius mundi)—an expression which he might readily have used even if he had been an adherent of the Celtic celebration of Easter. But it may be asked whether the Life which Muirchu wrote at the wish of Aed had any tendency beyond its mere hagiographical interest. There is, I think, some reason for supposing that it had a particular motive. When Muirchu wrote, the church of Slébte had just been brought into close connexion with Armagh. The record stands thus in the Liber Armachanus (fol. 18, rᵒ b; p. 346 Rolls ed.), as translated by Stokes:—
Bishop Aed was in Slébte. He went to Armagh. He brought a bequest to Segéne of Armagh. Segéne gave another bequest to Aed, and Aed offered a bequest and his kin and his church to Patrick for ever.
We cannot hesitate to bring this visit of Aed to Armagh, and his dedication of Slébte to Patrick, into connexion with the Muirchu to undertake the biography. So much seems clear. It is another question what was the motive of policy which drew interest which he evinced in Patrick’s life, when he stimulated Aed so closely to Armagh; and it is yet another whether we can discover any reflexion of such a motive in Muirchu’s work. Segéne, the abbot of Armagh, died in A.D. 688,[310] so that Aed’s visit must have occurred before that date. During the penultimate decade of the century many must have been trying to prepare the way for bringing about uniformity between northern and southern Ireland, by inducing the north to accept the Roman usages which had, more than a generation ago, been accepted by the south. It is a reasonable conjecture that Aed, who took part in the Synod which afterwards brought about this result, was working towards it in his dealings with Armagh. And it certainly is not impossible that, in giving such a prominent place in his narrative to the legend of Patrick’s first Easter in Ireland, Muirchu was thinking of the Easter controversy.[311]
In any case, it is significant that just at the time, or just on the eve, of the reconciliation of north and south, an ecclesiastic of south Ireland, whose name is associated with that reconciliation, should have given to the world a Life of Patrick, which, if it had come down to us anonymously, we should assuredly suppose to have been written in the north, and perhaps guess to have emanated from Armagh. No mention is made of traditions connecting Patrick with south-eastern Ireland—with the country of Muirchu—though such traditions existed. The notice of Fíacc’s relics at Slébte is indeed a local touch, but one which could never have suggested a clew, since there is a precisely similar notice of Ercc’s relics at Slane. Muirchu was eclectic; he had much more material than he used; so he expressly tells us, pauca haec de multis sancti Patricii gestis. It is to be noticed that apart from the events connected with the celebration of the first Easter, and apart from a number of unlocalised miracles, the gesta of Patrick which Muirchu describes are entirely laid in Ulster—at Armagh and in Ulidia. The tradition of Daire was, of course, preserved at Armagh; and the legend of the appearance of the angel to Patrick before his death bears on the face of it its Armagh origin. It seems probable, therefore, that some of Muirchu’s written material was derived directly from Armagh; and we can hardly be charged with going beyond our data if we regard Muirchu’s biography as setting a seal upon the new relation which had been established between Slébte and St. Patrick’s church.
Muirchu’s Life had a marked influence on all subsequent Patrician biographies. It established a framework of narrative which later compilers adopted, fitting in material from other sources.
The text of Muirchu is preserved incompletely in A, the missing parts are supplied by a late MS. preserved at Brussels;[312] and later compilations (Vita Secunda, Vita Quarta, Probus) furnish help for criticising the text. See Bury, “The Tradition of Muirchu’s Text,” cit. supra.
(4) Hymn Genair Patraicc
An Irish hymn on the life of St. Patrick, generally known as the Hymn of Fíacc, or (from its first words) the hymn Genair Patraicc, is included in the collections of Irish hymns preserved in two MSS. of the eleventh (Trinity College, Dublin, E, 4, 2) and eleventh or twelfth (Library of Franciscan Convent, Dublin) century. The MSS. ascribe the authorship to the poet Fíacc, who lived in the time of Patrick and became bishop of Slébte (Muirchu, 283₃); but this ascription is clearly false, not only from philological considerations, since the language points to a date which could not be much anterior to A.D. 800, but also from the evidence of the first verse—
Patrick was born in Nemthur, this is what he narrates in stories,