According to the Irish legendary lives, Kieran of Saigir was bishop in Ireland before the arrival of S. Patrick. After honouring him with the title of the "first-born of the saints of Ireland," these lives proceed to inform us that his father was Lugneus, a noble of Ossory, and his mother Liadain, of Corcalaighde, (Carberry), in South Munster. S. Kieran was born in Cape Clear Island. Having spent thirty years in Ireland still unbaptized, he heard of the Christian religion as flourishing at Rome, and went thither for the purpose of being instructed. There he was baptized, and remained twenty years, studying the Scriptures and canons, after which he was ordained bishop, and sent to preach in his own country. On his way to Ireland he met S. Patrick in Italy, who was not as yet a bishop, and who told Kieran that he would follow him to Ireland in thirty years from the date of their meeting. This must have happened in 402, and accordingly Kieran, being then fifty years old, was born in 352. When arrived in Ireland he was miraculously directed, as S. Patrick had told him he would, to the place since called Saigir, (Seir-Kieran, in King's County), where he erected a monastery. Having ordained an innumerable multitude of bishops and priests, he died at the age of 300! Other accounts state that Kieran's meeting with S. Patrick somewhere out of Ireland occurred several years after the latter had commenced his apostolical labours in this country. Jocelin places it at a time when S. Patrick was returning from Britain, whither he had gone to obtain a supply of additional helpers for his mission, and tells us that Kieran was then one of the six Irish priests who were proceeding to foreign countries for religious improvement, and all of whom afterwards became bishops in their own country. In the Tripartite history of S. Patrick the precise place of meeting is not given; but, what is more to the purpose, it is represented as having occurred at least twelve years after S. Patrick had begun his mission in Ireland, and Kieran is stated to have then received directions from the saint concerning the district in which he should erect his monastery.