Doroega port n-eseirgi Ard Machae mo chell

(I have reached the place of resurrection. Armagh (is) my church).
From the Tripartite Life of St Patrick.

Founded by St Patrick in the mid-5th century the church in Armagh soon developed on native monastic lines with abbots who were at first also bishops, but later, rarely so. To its school flocked students, native and foreign. Its pre-eminence among Irish ecclesiastical foundations is attested in documents from 640 on and was endorsed from the 8th century in the periodic visitations of other provinces carried out by its head under the title of Comharba Phádraig (Patrick's Successor).