 However, due to the incompleteness of all four surviving copies, scholars have found it difficult to piece together a comprehensible version of the "Vita".We can summarise from what is written in Muirchu's prologue to the "Vita" that it was the Bishop of Sletty, Aedh, who encouraged Muirchú to write, eventually commissioning and sponsoring the writing of the manuscript.Muirchú also informs his readers in the prologue that nobody else had attempted to write a “life of Patrick” except for his father Cogitosus.