The second part of the _Tripartite_ begins with St. Patrick's arrival at Tara to preach to King Laeghaire and his Druids, and is by far the most momentous portion of the work. The third part begins with the statement that Patrick left presbyter Conaed in Domnach Airther Maige, in the province of the Northern Hui Briuin, and ends with an account of Patrick's holy death and illustrious burial--"after founding churches in plenty, after consecrating monasteries, after baptizing the men of Ireland, after great patience and after great labour, after destroying idols and images, and after rebuking many kings who did not do his will, and after raising up those who did his will, after ordaining three hundred and three score and ten[106] bishops, and after ordaining three thousand priests and clerics of every grade in the Church besides, after fasting and prayer, after mercy and clemency, after gentleness and mildness to the sons of life, after the love of God and of his neighbours, he received Christ's Body from the Bishop--from Tassach--and then he sent his spirit to heaven"--in the hundredth and twentieth year of his age. The most interesting question connected with this _Tripartite_ life is its date and probable authorship. Unfortunately we have intrinsic evidence for neither; the manuscript itself is silent both as to its date and authorship. Hence there is much difference of opinion even amongst learned and honest scholars. Colgan thought that St. Evin of Monasterevan, who flourished about the middle of the sixth century, was its original author, and O'Curry adopted the same opinion. Petrie thought it a "compilation of the ninth or tenth century;" and Dr. Whitley Stokes, in his excellent edition of the _Tripartite_, undertakes to show that "it could not have been written before the middle of the tenth century, and that it was probably compiled in the eleventh." His arguments are two-fold--linguistic and historical. So far as the former are concerned, we may fairly say that he is not a better authority than O'Curry, and that if O'Curry thought this Life might have been of the sixth century, no philological arguments of Dr. Whitley Stokes will override his authority in that respect. But Stokes goes farther, and quotes entries from the _Tripartite_, which he alleges must have been made in the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. This, we readily admit, is a weightier argument. He cites nine or ten instances of this kind, which, as he alleges, were neither additions nor interpolations. Such, for instance, is the reference to Connacan, son of Colman, and grandson of Niall Frossach, who was killed in Ulster, A.D. 873.