tremendous loss was inflicted
on Cormac and his followers before Oengus and his people, i.e. the three
sons of Fiacha Suighde, namely, Ross and Oengus and Eoghan, as we have
already said, were eventually defeated, and obliged to fly the country
and to suffer exile. Consequent on their banishment as above by the king
of Ireland they sought hospitality from the king of Munster, Oilill Olum,
because Sadhbh, daughter of Conn Ceadcathach was his wife. They got land
from him, scil.: the Decies of Munster, and it is to that race, i.e. the
race of Eoghan Mac Fiacha Suighde that the kings and country of the
Decies belong ever since.

2. Of this same race of Eoghan was the holy bishop Declan of whom I
shall speak later scil.: Declan son of Eirc, son of Trein, son of
Lughaidh, son of Miaich, son of Brian, son of Eoghan, son of Art Corp,
son of Moscorb, son of Mesgeadra, son of Measfore, son of Cuana
Cainbhreathaigh, son of Conaire Cathbuadhaigh, son of Cairbre, son of
Eoghan, son of Fiacha Suighde, son of Felimidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal
Teachtmhar. The father of Declan was therefore Erc Mac Trein. He and
his wife Deithin went on a visit to the house of his kinsman Dobhran
about the time that Declan's birth was due. The child she bore was
Declan, whom she brought forth without sickness, pain or difficulty but
in being lifted up afterwards he struck his head against a great stone.
Let it be mentioned that Declan showed proofs of sanctification and power
of miracle-working in his mother's womb, as the prophet writes:--"De
vulva sanctificavi te et prophetam in gentibus dedi te" [Jeremias 1:5]
(Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and made thee
a prophet unto the nations). Thus it is that Declan was sanctified in
his mother's womb and was given by God as a prophet to the pagans for the
conversion of multitudes of them from heathenism and the misery of
unbelief to the worship of Christ and to the Catholic faith, as we shall
see later on. The very soft apex of his head struck against a hard
stone, as we have said, and where the head came in contact with the stone
it made therein a hollow and cavity of its own form and shape, without
injury of any kind to him. Great wonder thereupon seized all who
witnessed this, for Ireland was at this time without the true faith and
it was rarely that any one (therein) had shown heavenly Christian signs.
"Declan's Rock" is the name of the stone with which the Saint's