Celtic scholar and philologist Whitley Stokes (1830 1909) edited and translated many important early medieval texts from Ireland, in Latin and Irish, which remain standard reading. This two-volume edition of works about Patrick, the fifth-century apostle to Ireland, was first published in 1887. The Tripartite Life, compiled around 900 CE, is the earliest-known saint's life in Irish. It was intended to be read over the three days of the saint's festival. Hagiography rather than history, with many fictitious and legendary elements, it is partly in Irish and partly in Latin. The Irish portions are translated into English. Volume 1 includes an extensive introduction on the manuscript sources, the work's probable date on linguistic grounds, and the social context in which it originated. Stokes also attempts to disentangle fable from known biographical information about Patrick, and discusses the saint's own writings and the annalistic references given in Volume 2.

Celtic scholar and philologist Whitley Stokes (1830 1909) edited and translated many important early medieval texts from Ireland, in Latin and Irish, which remain standard reading. This two-volume edition of works about Patrick, the fifth-century apostle to Ireland, was first published in 1887. Volume 2 contains a range of works dating from the fifth to the eleventh century. It includes the two surviving works that can be attributed to Patrick himself, the Confession and Letter to Coroticus. The excerpts from the Book of Armagh from the seventh century onward reflect the growing nationwide cult of St Patrick, and Armagh's claim to ecclesiastical primacy by associating Patrick with its church. These include the accounts of Patrick by Tirechan and Muirchu, and the 'Book of the Angel'. There are also hymns by Secundinus and Fiacc, Ninnine's prayer and an Irish homily from the Lebar Brecc. Translations of the Irish, along with several appendices and indexes, are also provided.