Page:The most ancient lives of Saint Patrick - O'Leary.djvu/71

 uim Corcortri, and founded a church there, and he left in it Diarmaid, son of Restitutus.

When Patrick was going eastwards to Tara, to Laeghaire (for they had formed a friendship), from Domhnach-Patrick, he blessed Conall, son of Niall. When he was going away, he threw his flagstone (lec) behind him eastwards into the hill, i.e., where. . . . . .   [A folio of the original MS. is missing here.]

And Maine knelt to Patrick and performed penance, and Patrick said, "Rex non erit qui te non habebit; and thy injunctions shall be the longest that will live in Erinn. The person whom I have blessed also shall be a king, i.e., Tuathal [Maelgarbh]." And he [Tuathal] assumed the sovereignty afterwards, and banished Diarmaid MacCerbhaill, so that he was on Loch-Ri, and on Derg-Derc, and on Luimnech.

One day as Diarmaid went in his boat past the shore of Cluainmic-Nois, Ciaran heard the noise and motion of the craft, and called him ashore, and Ciaran said, "Come to me, for thou art a king's son, and mark out the Redes [a church] and the Eclais-bec [a little church], and grant the place to me." He said, "I am not a king." To whom Ciaran said, "You will be a king to-morrow." In that day, the king, Tuathal, came with great bands to banish Diarmaid, when Maelmor (of the Conaille), Diarmaid's foster-brother, killed him; and Maelmor was immediately slain. Hence the old saying, "the feat of Maelmor." Diarmaid afterwards assumed the sovereignty of Erinn, through Ciaran's blessing when Diarmaid was marking the site of Eclais-bec, and bowed down thrice.