' THE 
 
 HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND, 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 ON THE PUBLICATIONS OF 
 
 THE IRISH ARCHiilOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 FouNDEn A.D. 1840, 
 
 FOR THE PRINTING OF THE GENEALOGICAL, ECCLESIASTICAL, BARDIC 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL, AND HISTORICAL REMAINS OF IRELAND. 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 W. B. KELLY, 8, GRAFTON-STREET. 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., LONDON. 
 OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH. 
 
 1851. 
 
"Diu nimis obscurata tenebris delituit Hibernia, nee sibi proi"sus cognita, nee aliis: diu 
 satis eclipsin passa est rudis admodum et indigesta ; filiisque suis peregrina, se vcl fuisse 
 hucusque dubitavit." 
 
 " lam tandem diu nimis infelix Hibernia, remotis fabulis, abactisque procul commentis, 
 ad vivum, se peritiori manu vestra impressam agnoscit; dumque labores res/'ros in ernen- 
 dis rerum suarum annalibus, grate inceptos feliciterqne peractos intueatm*, se diu nimis 
 obscuro sepiiltam tumulo, novosque e calamo vestro spiritus indies Lauvire novamque in- 
 diiisse lueem fatetur." — Parrius ad Varmon. 
 
 
 Browne & Nola>-, Printers, 21, Nassau-street, Diibiiii. 
 

 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The favorable manner in which this Essay was received 
 on its appearance in No. III. of the Irish Quarterly 
 Keview, has induced the proprietors to accede to the 
 general desire expressed for its publication in a detached 
 form. 
 
 It has long been a source of equal surprise and disap- 
 pointment to the learned of other nations, that periodicals 
 printed in Ireland should have hitherto conveyed no infor- 
 mation on the literature of the country with which they 
 are presumed to be identified. Thus, although the Irish 
 Archaeological Society is now in its eleventh year, and has 
 expended many thousand pounds in the production of 
 valuable works on the history, language, and antiquities of 
 Ireland, the present is the first notice of its publications 
 which has appeared in any Irish literary periodical. 
 
 The demand for a republication of this paper affords a 
 pleasing evidence that literature in its best shape, or a 
 desire of the " knowledge of ourselves," is progressing in 
 Ireland, and would rapidly advance if proper efforts were 
 made to exhibit, in a popular manner, the objects of our 
 literary institutions. 
 
 It may be added, that this essay contains a considerable 
 amount of interesting collateral information, derived from 
 various manuscript and printed sources, not to be found in 
 the publications of the Society. 
 
 2508 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 23, line 27, /or these re«c7 there 
 Page 26, line SG, for it read il. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 A FEW Continental authors have, within the present century, effected 
 a complete change in the style of writing history. Eschewing the 
 dull volumes of tedious compilers, they have had recourse to the 
 works of the old contemporary chroniclers, by a careful collation of 
 which, with legal and official documents, they have succeeded in 
 producing an animated and life-like picture of the manners and 
 customs of former ages ; " in a complete narrative, exhausting texts, 
 assembling scattered details, collecting even to the slightest indica- 
 tions of facts and of characters, and from all these forming one body, 
 into which science and art unite to breathe the breath of life." * 
 
 The writers, to whom we are indebted for this new school of 
 historic literature, are Augustin Thierry and his brother Amedee, 
 Michaud, Sismondi, Guizot and Barante. Scarcely inferior to any of 
 these great historians, in depth of research and powers of narration, 
 Macaulay, much as he habitually allows his political prejudices to 
 obscure his judgment, may be regarded as their English representa- 
 tive. 
 
 The way was prepared for these attractive writers by the historic 
 antiquarians and the publishing associations which, on the Continent 
 and in England and Scotland, have been and still continue labouring 
 to rescue the works of the old chroniclers from the dust and neglect 
 of centuries. But for the exertions of such literary pioneersf the 
 
 * Recits des temps Merovingiens. 
 
 t The following great national historical collections show how much 
 Ireland is behind the rest of Europe in the cultivation of native history: — 
 Andre Du Chesne, " Historian Francorum Scriptores coaetanei, ab gentis 
 origine usque ad Phillipi IV. tempora," 5 volumes, folio, 1636-49. 
 " Historiae Normannorum Scriptores Antiqui, res ab illis gestas expli- 
 cantes, ab ann 838 ad ann 1220," folio, 1619. Martin Bouquet, " Re- 
 cueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, &c., accompagne de 
 
6 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 most diligent author would scarcely be able, in the period of a single 
 life, to bring together the materials necessary for the proper illus- 
 tration of even one important era. The history of Europe would 
 consequently still remain arid and repulsive as the driest and most 
 uninteresting annals. 
 
 In France, the efforts of the publishing associations are ably 
 seconded by the government, while in England and Scotland, the 
 general appreciation of national historic researches, among the edu- 
 cated classes, has ever afforded ample and substantial encourage- 
 ment to the literary antiquarian. 
 
 Far different has, hitherto, been the case in Ireland. Subjected, 
 almost ever since the invention of printing, to perpetual civil war 
 and religious persecutions, little time was there to be found for the 
 cultivation of letters. Another no less potent cause acted against the 
 study of Irish literature. This was the miscalculating policy which 
 formerly dictated the eradication of the old Celtic language of the 
 country. A short-sighted attempt, condemned equally by the evan- 
 gelical Bedell, and the philosophic Boyle, at a time when it was 
 most warmly pui'sued by its fanatical advocates; and which only 
 served to make the natives cling with a fiercer and more desperate 
 
 sommaires, de tables et de notes " (continue par Haudiquier, Pre- 
 cieux, Clement, Poirier, et Brial), 1738 — 1832, 19 volumes. "Collec- 
 tion des Memoires relatifs a I'Histoire de France depuis la fondation de 
 la Monarchic Fran9aise jusqu'au xiiime siecle ; avec une introduction, 
 des supplemens, des notices et des notes, par M. Guizot," 1823 — 27, 
 29 volumes, 8vo. " Collection complete des Memoires relatifs a I'Histoire 
 de France, depuis le regne de Philippe Auguste jusqu'au commencement 
 du xviie siecle avec des notices sur chaque auteur et des observations sur 
 chaque ouvrage, par M. Petitot," 53 vols. 8vo. 1819 — 27. "Collection de 
 Memoires relatifs a I'Histoire de France, depuis I'avenement de Henri IV. 
 jusqu' a la paix de Paris, conclue en 1763, avec des notices sur chaque 
 auteur et des observations par Petitot et Montmerque," (second series,) 
 79 vols. 8vo. 1820 — 29. " Collection de Memoires relatifs a la Revolu- 
 tion Fran9aise, avec des notices sur leurs auteurs et des eclaircisseraents 
 historiques par Berville et Barriere," 56 vols. 8vo. 1820 — 1826. The 
 above are noticed, as they seldom appear in our country, and show how 
 much superior is the historical literature of France to that of Great Britain. 
 Of the other national collections we shall only mention Lud. Ant. Mura- 
 tori's '' Antiquitates Italicas medii sevi, post declinationem Romani imperii 
 ad ann 1500," 6 vols, folio, 1738—42; " Rerum Italicarum Scriptores 
 prascipui ab anno ser^e Christianas D. ad IMD." 29 vols, folio, 1723 — 51; 
 " Annali d' Italia dell'era volgare, sino all 1750," 17 vols, folio, 1753—6; 
 and J. Langebek's " Scriptores rerum Danicarum medii aevi," 7 vols, 
 folio, 1772—92. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 7 
 
 tenacity* to the old tongue of theii* fathers, iu which their dearest 
 and most ennoMing recollections and traditions were enshrined. 
 
 There are, even in the present day, many estimable persons in 
 Ireland of opinion that the publication of historic documents tends 
 to revive old prejudices and to awake bad feelings. Had this idea 
 prevailed among the more enlightened of other countries, literature 
 would not now have to boast of the works of Scott, of Lamartine, 
 
 * The attachment of the Irish to their native language is very remarkable; 
 we learn from a manuscript cited by Dr. Leland, sometime Fellow of the 
 University of Dublin, that when, in former times, any of the clans were 
 unable to withstand the hostile powers of the invaders, they used to claim 
 the assistance of their neighbouring tribes, "for the sake of the old tongue 
 of the Gaels of Erin ;" an argument which never failed to elicit the desired 
 reinforcements. It is a curious historical fact, that the Irish troops, who 
 principally contributed to save the town of Louvain, in 1635, from the 
 tremendous assault of the great French army under Marshals Chatillon and 
 De Breze, were, in that bloody contest, marshalled and commanded in the 
 military terms vfhich the language of their country supplied. A. Latin 
 writer of the seventeenth century, who was conversant with most of the 
 European tongues, tells us that the Irish language " surpasseth in gravity 
 the Spanish, in elegance the Italian, in colloquial charms the French, it 
 equals, if it does not surpass, the German itself in inspiring terror. From 
 the lips of the Irish preacher it is a bolt to arrest the evil-doer in the career 
 of guilt, and to allure by its soft and insinuating tones to the paths of vir- 
 tue. The witticism, the jest, and the epigram it expresses briefly; and, in 
 the hands of the poet, it is so pliant and flexible, that the ' Uraiceacht na 
 n-eigeas,' or ' Precepts of the Poets,' lay down rules for more than a 
 hundred different kinds of metre ; so that iu the opinion of men who are 
 well acquainted with several languages, Irish poetry does not yield, either 
 in variety, construction, or polish of its metres, to the poetry of any nation 
 in Europe. Spenser himself corroborates this opinion, when he says : ' I 
 have caused divers of Irish poems to be translated unto me, that I might 
 understand them, and surely they savoured of sweet wit and good invention ; 
 they are sprinkled with some pretty flowers of natural device, which gave 
 good grace and comeliness to them.' " To maintain the manners and 
 traditions of their fathers, against the efforts of the invaders, the Irish," 
 says Augustin Thierry, " made for themselves monuments which neither 
 steel nor fire could destroy ; they had recourse to the art of singing, in 
 which they gloried in excelling, and which in the times of independence 
 had been their pride and pleasure. The bards and minstrels became the 
 keepers of the records of the nation. Wandering from village to village, 
 they carried to every hearth memoirs of ancient Erin ; they studied to 
 render them agreeable to all tastes and all ages ; they had war songs for the 
 men, love ditties for the women, and marvellous tales for the children of 
 the house. Every mansion preserved two harps ever ready for travellers, 
 and he who could best celebrate the liberty of former times, the glory of 
 patriots, and the grandeur of their cause, was rewarded by a more 
 lavish hospitality. The kings of England endeavoured more than once to 
 strike a blow at Ireland in this last refuge of its regrets and hopes ; the 
 wandering poets were persecuted, banished, delivered up to tortures and 
 death; but violence only served to irritate indomitable wills; the art of 
 
8 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OE IRELAND. 
 
 and of Manzoni. Such an argument, moreover, strikes at the dis- 
 semination of TRUTH, and has, we know by sad examples, led in 
 Continental countries, to results most disastrous to the liberties of 
 mankind. It is an incontrovertible fact, that political animosities 
 have, in all nations, been designedly engendered and fostered by 
 the propagation of historic falsehoods, which are ever ready to 
 usurp the place unoccupied by truth. The contemplation of the 
 
 singing and of poetry had its martyrs like religion ; and the remembrances, 
 the destruction of which was desired, were increased by the feeling of how 
 much they cost them to preserve." 
 
 In allusion to those penal times, we find the following lines in a late 
 anonymous writer : — 
 
 " Ah, God is good and nature strong— thej' let not thus decay 
 
 The seeds that deep in Irish breasts of Irish feeling lay; 
 
 Still sun and rain made emerald green the loveliest fields on earth, 
 
 And gave the type of deathless hope, the little shamrock, birth; 
 
 Still crouching ''neath the sheltering liedge, or stretclied on mountain fern, 
 
 The teacher and his pupils met, feloniously— to learn: 
 
 Still round the peasant's heart of hearts his darling music twined, 
 
 A fount of Irish sobs or smiles in every note ensln-ined ; 
 
 And still beside the smouldering turf were fond traditions told 
 
 Of heavenly saints and princely chiefs — the power and faith of old." 
 
 The native poets delighted to revile 
 
 " the stranger's tongue upborne by law. 
 
 Whose phrase imcouth distorts the Gaelic jaw," 
 
 and found endless pleasure in eulogizing their own language. As an illus- 
 tration of this we may quote a stanza from one of the poems of Donogh 
 O'Mahony " the blind," a Munster bard of the last century : — 
 
 " As iseadh ha bJilasda, ba cneasda, bafhior-Homhtha, 
 
 Ba oilte, ba aite, ba thapadh a m-btigh bin ghuib; 
 
 Ba shnaighie, ba shnasghlaine racaireachd gaois-laoithe, 
 
 Ni h-ionan 's glafairneach mhallaighthe ar bh-for-naimhde."' 
 
 " Unlike the jargon of our foreign foe. 
 On raptur'd ear it pours its copious flow; 
 Most feeling, mild, polite, and poUsh'd tongue, 
 That learned sage e'er spoke or poet simg." 
 
 Mr. Christopher Anderson, a learned Scotch author, in his recently pub- 
 lished work on the " Native Irish," labours to prove that the neglect of the 
 Irish language has been alike injurious to the progress of English and that 
 of general knowledge. Speaking of the natives, he says, " the Irish is still 
 the language of their hearts, and even of the best part of their understand- 
 ing. In it they still continue to express their joy or sorrow ; for this is the 
 language which is associated with their earliest' recollections. In it their 
 mothers hushed them to rest in the days of their infancy ; and in youth, if 
 they loved music, they were charmed with the numbers of the ' Culan,' or 
 of ' Erin go Bragh.' " Bopp, Grimm, Diefenbach, and other profound 
 German philologists, have borne testimony to the special importance of the 
 Irish language, as being the richest in its vocabulary and grammatical forms, 
 at the same time that it possesses the most ancient and numerous records, 
 of the nature of histories, laws, and poems ; and we may add, that the 
 number of vocables in the Irish language exceeds 50,000. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 9 
 
 history of our ancestors, their misfortunes, their virtues, their eiTors 
 and their crimes, cannot fail to exercise a beneficial influence on us, 
 their descendants, inasmuch as one of the great masters of the human 
 mind has told us that "history is philosophy, teaching by example." 
 Despite all obstacles, it is, however, pleasing to recollect, that even 
 in the worst times, a few men were to be found who, under most 
 discouraging circumstances, at considerable personal sacrifices, and 
 actuated solely by a love of their country's literature, essayed and 
 achieved much for the preservation of our historic documents. The 
 names of Ussher, Ware, Colgan, Fleming, and Ward must ever be 
 remembered vnih gratitude as the first who, by their elegant Latin 
 treatises, rendered the ancient history of Ireland familiar to the 
 learned of Europe. Since the seventeenth century, the study of 
 Irish literature has never been entirely neglected, but notwithstanding 
 all the efi'orts of individuals, the greatest and most important monu- 
 ments of the early history of the country are still unpublished and 
 inaccessible. A short view of these documents will give an idea of 
 the obstacles which still continue to oppose the production of a true 
 '* History of Ireland." 
 
 From the earliest period of which we have any account, to the 
 commencement of the seventeenth centmy, the native Irish, or Gaels, 
 were governed by a peculiar written code, known as the Brehon laws. 
 These laws are referred to by Venerable Bede, by the ante-Danish 
 poets, by Cenfaelad in the seventh century, by Probus in the tenth, 
 by Tighernach in the eleventh, and by the Magnates Hiberni^ in 
 the fourteenth century. Placed in the extremity of Eui-ope, seclu- 
 ded from the rest of the world, unconquered, unmixed, and never 
 aifected by the concussions of the fall of the Roman Empire, the 
 Irish must have possessed primeval institutions, which these docu- 
 ments are best calculated to unfold.* Many copies of these laws 
 are still preserved in our public libraries, and are in general accom- 
 panied by elaborate glosses and commentaries, written for the most 
 part by the Irish jurists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centimes. 
 
 The contents of the Brehon laws still remaining to usf "are very 
 
 * Bibliotheca Manuscripta Stouensis. 
 
 t Suggestions with a view to the Transcription and Publication of the 
 MSS. of the Brehon Laws, now in the Libraries of the British Museum, 
 
10 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 various, and may be found to have important bearings upon the 
 existing condition of society in Ireland. Some relate to offences 
 against person and property; and regulate in the most minute 
 manner, the fines to be paid by the ofi*enders, as well as the com- 
 pensations to be received by the injured parties, or their representa- 
 tives. Others prescribe the prices to be paid for work done, or 
 articles purchased. A very interesting class of laws lays down the 
 privileges attaching to persons in the different ranks of society. 
 Others have reference to the distribution and transfer of land. It 
 must be apparent that documents of such a nature are of great 
 importance; not only as illustrating the customs and character of 
 the ancient Irish, but even as throwing light upon the earliest and 
 most obscure part of European history. As the Celtic nations re- 
 tired westward before the pressure of new colonizing swarms, they 
 carried with them into the British islands much of their primitive 
 language and usages. The former remains to this day. It is 
 therefore unreasonable to deny the probability of their having also 
 preserved such remnants of the latter, as might serve to supply the 
 philosophic historian with valuable materials. It ought to be 
 added, that the study of comparative philology would be promoted 
 in no ordinary way by the publication of the ancient Irish laws. 
 They are written in a dialect almost as different from the vernacular 
 Irish of the present day, as Anglo-Saxon is from English.* They 
 
 the University of Oxford, the Royal Irish Academy, and Trinity College, 
 Dublin. 12mo. London: 1851. 
 
 * The name of Brehon is cognate with the Celtic noun Breath or 
 Break, which signifies a judicial decision. The language of those laws is 
 so peculiar and so long obsolete, that there are but two scholars to be found 
 capable of deciphering and translating them, with accuracy and precision ; 
 it is scarcely necessary to say, that we refer to Dr. John O'Donovan and 
 Mr, Eugene Curry. The latter gentleman, whose examination before the 
 Parliamentary Committee of Public Libraries, in 1849, excited so much 
 interest in England relative to the ancient literature of Ireland, has amassed 
 an immense amount of collateral illustrative matter, for the elucidation of 
 the laws of the Brehons, and has also compiled extensive and invaluable 
 glossaries of the most unusual and obscure terms with which they abound. 
 Although Mr. Curry has not hitherto taken a prominent public part in the 
 Irish literary world, those who are competent to form a judgment, coincide 
 in pronouncing him the most erudite Celtic palaeographer ever produced by 
 Ireland ; not even excepting Mac Firbis, the O'Clerighs, or the O'Maoil- 
 chonaires. His critical knowledge of the older and more obscure dialects of 
 the country, is perfectly unequalled and unprecedented. There is scarcely 
 an important Irish manuscript in Great Britain or Ireland, or in the rich 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 11 
 
 abound, too, in technical terms and titles of persons, which are 
 obviously among the most unvarying parts of a language. From 
 no source could the scholar engaged in analyzing the Celtic 
 languages, and determining their relation to the other branches of 
 
 Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, which he has not examined, collated, or 
 transcribed, and in every Irish historical work of consequence, produced 
 within the last quarter of a century, we find the authors expressing their 
 numerous obligations to him for invaluable Celtic information, of which 
 he is the sole depository. The critical and analytical Catalogues which he 
 has compiled of the Gaelic manuscripts of th« Royal Irish Academy, and 
 of those in the British Museum, would alone entitle him to a high lite- 
 rary position. He has lately completed his examination and collation of 
 the Betham manuscripts, added to our National Collection through the 
 exertions of the Rev. Charles Graves ; to the public subscription for which 
 we are proud to state, that the Right Hon. B. L. Guinness, Lord Mayor 
 of Dublin, was one of the most munificent contributors; thus opening 
 a new era in our civic annals, and giving an example, which will, we trust, 
 not be lost on his successors in office. Mr. Curry is now engaged in col- 
 lating the fragments of the ancient Brehon laws, preserved in the English 
 manuscript collections; and we trust that he will soon proceed to press 
 with his treatises on the "History of the Boromean Tribute," and the 
 " Account of the Fir-Bolgic, or Belgic Colony in Ireland" — two documents 
 of the greatest importance in illustrating the earlier portions of our annals. 
 When we recollect the uncertainty of human life, and how much the 
 records of Ireland have suffered at various periods by accidents, and con- 
 sider that, as in the case of the Escurial, a fire of a few minutes' duration 
 i« one of our manuscript collections, might effectually destroy the entire 
 historical monuments of an important era, we cannot avoid expressing our 
 deep anxiety, that public steps should be taken for the prompt publication 
 of our ancient annals and literary remains, while they are yet in a state of 
 safety, and while the scholars are amongst us, whose departure from the 
 stage of life would leave the older Celtic records of Ireland a blank for ever. 
 *' The losses of history, indeed," says Gibbon, ''are irretrievable; when the 
 productions of fancy or science have been swept away, new poets may invent, 
 and new philosophers may reason ; but, if the inscription of a single fact 
 be once obliterated, it cannot be restored by the united efforts of genius and 
 industry. The consideration of our past losses should invite the present 
 age to cherish and perpetuate the valuable relics which have escc^ped." 
 This is truly a national question, and demands the attention of our edu- 
 cated classes. The literary men of Europe look to Ireland for the ancient 
 monuments of her Celtic language; and we shall stand eternally disgraced 
 in the republic of letters, if we make not a strenuous effort to supply 
 them with what they have so long and so earnestly demanded. " II est 
 temps," says Adolphe Pictet, one of the latest and most distinguished 
 French philologers, " de trancher enfin cette question: I'anciennete de ces 
 idiomes, le nombre et I'importance historique de leurs monuments ecrits, 
 presque inconnus encore, le fait quils renferment une partie des origines 
 de la langue Frangaise ; tout se reunit pour reveiller I'interet sur ces 
 curieux debris de la primitive Europe. En attendant des travaux plus 
 complets sur leur histoire, travaux qui ne peuvent etre entrepris avec succes 
 que par les savants nationaux, on pent, au moyen des materiaux existants 
 les rattacher a leur veritable souche, qui est, sans contredit, Indo-Euro- 
 peene." 
 
12 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 the Indo-European family, derive more abundant or precious ma- 
 terials." 
 
 The manifest injustice with which Ireland was treated by the late 
 " Record Commission," which eflfected the publication of the 
 Anglo-Saxon and Welsh laws, leaving the Irish legal records 
 almost untouched, is to be attributed to our own apathy, as we 
 believe that no proper public remonstrance was ever made against 
 this neglect of the Commissioners. We are, however, glad to find, 
 that at length the publication of these ancient Irish laws is about 
 to be made a literary question, of not only National but European 
 importance, and feel confident that the Imperial Government,* 
 however parsimonious in its allowances to the literary institutions of 
 Ireland, will not hesitate to undertake the preservation of the laws 
 of the Brehons; when their publication is recommended by such 
 scholars as Guizot, Pictet, Bunsen, and Hallam. The Anglo- 
 Norman legal records of Ireland have hitherto fared scarcely better 
 than the Brelion laws. There arc upwards of twelve hundred legis- 
 lative enactments, which have never yet been pubHshed,']' and con- 
 sequently do not appear in the defective and inaccurate printed 
 editions of the Irish Statutes. The great body of the rolls, 
 inquisitions, and other ofiicial documents, most important as illus- 
 trations of history, are still reposing in their dusty and almost in- 
 accessible repositories ; whence they are scarcely ever drawn, save 
 when it is found necessary to consult them, for the purpose of deci- 
 ding questions relative to property, or disputed titles. 
 
 Such is the condition of our legal antiquities, which Gibbon calls 
 
 * The national resources of France and Germany have long since effected 
 the publication of the Salic law and of the Codes of the Ripuarian Franks, 
 the Burgundians, and the Visigoths ; more recently, the Danish govern- 
 ment furnished the means of publishing the Icelandic laws, documents 
 remarkably similar in their nature to the ancient laws of Ireland, The 
 government of Great Britain is at present contributing to the excavations 
 at Nineveh, to the neglect of their own national monuments. This fact 
 forcibly recalls what Pliny says in his epistle to Gallus: "Ad qua; 
 noscenda iter ingredi, transmittere mare solemus, ea sub oculis posita 
 negligimus; seu quia ita natura comparatum, ut proximorum incuriosi, 
 longinqua sectemur. Quacunque de causa, permulta in urbe nostra, jux- 
 taque urbem, non oculis modo, sed ne auribus quidem novimus. Qu<b si 
 tuUsset Achaia, CEgyptus, Asia, aliave qucelibet miraculorum ferax com- 
 mendatrixque terra, audita, perlecta, lustratataque haberemus." — C. Plinii 
 Caecilii Secundi Epist. lib. viii. 
 
 t Lynch's "Prescriptive Baronies of Ireland;" London: 1835. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 13 
 
 "the most instructive portion of a country's history;" and in this 
 inaccessible and disgraceful state will they continue, until proper 
 representations shame om- Government into their publication. With 
 the exception of official records, brief Latin annals, chartularies of 
 religious houses, and that strange collection of romantic historic- 
 fiction called the " Booh of Hoicth,^'* the Anglo-Norman settlers 
 in the Pale and the large towns of Ireland, left but few literary 
 remains. Many state papers, original letters, diaries, and accounts 
 of important transactions, written in English and Latin, in 
 the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, relating to the 
 histoiy of teland, are still preserved in the manuscript collec- 
 tions of Great Britain. The large numbers of ancient manu- 
 scripts in the Irish language which have come down to us, cannot 
 fail to excite surprize, when we reflect on the quantities of such 
 works which must have been destroyed by the revolutions of cen- 
 turies, and the innumerable accidents to which literary monuments 
 are exposed. Their preservation is, however, satisfactorily accounted 
 for, by the jealous and sedulous care with which the old Irish 
 guarded their written documents. 
 
 An antiquarianf of the seventeenth centmy, whose knowledge of 
 Celtic literature has never been surpassed, tells us that in ancient 
 times, " every district in Ireland had its Bard, and its Brelion or 
 Judge; and the genealogies were so accurately entered in their 
 books, that he who refuses credit to them, may equally deny faith in 
 his father or grandfather, since om- fathers and grandfathers were 
 our witnesses, each generation committing them to the care of then- 
 successors." '* Neither was there any order," continues the same 
 wi-iter, "lay or ecclesiastic in Ireland, which was not bound by 
 penalties, as stated in our Lmv Books, and on pain likewise of 
 honor and reputation, to preserve theii* genealogies and histories, 
 
 * " The Book of Howth" is a miscellaneous compilation of the sixteenth 
 century, supposed to have been made for Christopher, the blind Baron of 
 Howth, who died A. D. 1589; for more than a century past, this book was 
 supposed to have been lost, but it has been discovered by Dr. O'Donovan, 
 among the Carew manuscripts, preserved in the Lambeth Library. By 
 those best acquainted with our records and history, it has never been con- 
 sidered of authority, nor held in any other light than as a compilation of 
 Anglo-Irish fables, invented to flatter and amuse the inhabitants of the 
 Pale ; on whose manners, customs, and language, we may add, its pub- 
 lication would throw much light. 
 
 t Duald Mac Firbis, ob. 1670. 
 
1 4 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 SO that on comparisoii with those of other districts aud churches, 
 they should be found to correspond ; and it was ordained by law 
 that there should be always seven ranks or orders of the learned to 
 inspect those books. 
 
 Many of those parchment volumes, still preserved, are exquisite 
 specimens of caligraphy and aitistical ornamentation; they are in 
 general named after the clan to which they belonged, or the place 
 where they were compiled ; thus we have the ''Book of the 0^ Kellys^'''' 
 the ^'Booh of the Mac Egans,^^ the '^Book of Leacan^'' and the 
 '•'■Book of Ballymote.''^ Their contents are various, comprising 
 genealogies, annals, accounts of battles and important events, 
 topographical tracts, lives of Irish saints, historical poems, romantic 
 tales, treatises on law, medicine and scientific subjects, together with 
 translations fi'om the classics and the contemporary authors of 
 foreign countries. In addition to the "great books," we possess an 
 infinite number of short detached historical and scientific documents 
 of considerable antiquity, and most important in illustrating the 
 earlier portions of our annals. The old chieftains and heads of clans 
 set a high value on these works, which they often purchased at 
 enormous prices ; not unfrequently was the desire to possess them 
 the cause of sanguinary contests, and even in some cases, a manu- 
 script volume was taken as ransom for a prisoner of distinction, after 
 gold and other valuable articles had been rejected. The contempla- 
 tion of the historic importance of those documents, their precarious 
 state, and the probability of then- never being properly deciphered 
 or translated, if neglected in the present generation, forcibly demon- 
 strated to the more enlightened in Ireland and abroad, the neces- 
 sity of taking immediate steps for their preservation. Hence, after 
 much anxious thought and deliberation, several Irish Peers, a large 
 number of Prelates and Clergymen of the Estabhshed Chm'ch, the 
 Provost, some of the Fellows of the University of Dublin, and 
 many of the members of the Royal Irish Academy,* united, in 
 
 * See the list of original members prefixed to the first volume of the So- 
 ciety's publications. The present Earl of Dunraven, Lord Talbot de Ma- 
 lahide, and the Marquis of Kildare, have taken a lively interest in, and 
 contributed much to, the promotion of the study of their country's his- 
 toric literature. The Earl of Clarendon, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 has done more than is generally known to advance our national learn- 
 ings. He contributed liberally to the fund for the purchase of the Betham 
 MSS., and lately presented to the Academy's Museum a number of valuable 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 15 
 
 forming a publishing association, which they decided on calling 
 " The Irish Arch^ological Society." This body held its first 
 meeting on St. Patrick's Day, in the year 1840. Since that day, 
 the Committee of the Society has continued to labour earnestly and 
 nobly to rescue from oblivion and decay the scattered and obscure 
 monuments of Irish histoiy. For this purpose they have achieved 
 much ; and the Institution, since its foundation, has formed a centre of 
 literary attraction, around which the lovers of historic investigation 
 have collected and remained steadfast, even amid the fearful times of 
 famine and sedition. It has, however, been justly remarked, that the 
 efforts of this Society have not been properly seconded by those to 
 whom it should most naturally look for support and encom*agement. 
 Its proceedings and publications have been almost unnoticed by those 
 periodicals which have been hitherto regarded as the literary organs 
 of the country, and which, instead of fostering native learning, from 
 which the true glory of a nation is to be derived, have, in almost 
 
 antique Irish circlets of solid gold. His Excellency is, we may add, a 
 member of the Archceological and Celtic Societies. Lord Kildare, Vice- 
 President of the same Societies, has, at considerable expense, had elegant 
 transcripts made of all the historical poems and unpublished documents 
 relative to the history of the Geraldines; and he has also contributed 
 a munificent sum, to enable our Archaeological Society to expedite their 
 publication of that extraordinary and unique philological work, commonly 
 known as " Cormac's Glossary," written in the ninth century. 
 
 Several dignitaries of the Established Church have also, of late years, 
 cultivated the study of Irish history and antiquities with eminent success. 
 Of the many so distinguished, we may mention the Rev. James H. Todd, 
 D.D., Senior Fellow of the University of Dublin, Secretary to the Royal 
 Irish Academy and to our Archaeological Society, a most accomplished 
 Celtic scholar and ecclesiologist. The value of his untiring labors can 
 only be adequately appreciated by those who are acquainted with the 
 obstacles and difficulties with which he has had to contend, in his disinter- 
 ested pursuit of the advancement of the literary reputation of his country. 
 The Rev. Charles Graves, Fellow of, and Professor of Mathematics in, 
 the University of Dublin, a profound Celtic philologist. His treatise on 
 the Ogham or occult forms of writing, in use among the ancient Irish, 
 about to be published by our Archaeological Society, will finally set at rest 
 that hitherto *'vexafa qucest/'o." But for the influence and exertions of 
 this reverend gentleman, the invaluable collection of Irish manuscripts 
 made by Sir W. Eetham, and lately added to the noble Library of the 
 Royal Irish Academy, would have passed into the hands of foreign col- 
 lectors. The Rev. Richard Butler, Dean of Clonmacnois, one of our 
 ablest Anglo-Irish antiquaries, and who has spared no trouble or expense 
 to preserve the historic remains and monuments in his own locality, as 
 every visitor to the romantic ruins along the banks of the Boyr)e can testify. 
 The Venerable Henry Cotton, D.C.L., Archdeacon of Cashel, author of 
 the elaborate " Fasti Ecclesice Hiberniag." His efforts to repair the inju- 
 ries which the ancient monuments of " Cashel of the Kings" suffered from 
 
16 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 every instance, directed their attention to the productions of foreign 
 authors and of foreign presses; and, attracted by the history and 
 antiquities of the most remote countries, they have totally over- 
 looked what was passing in the literary world of Ireland. 
 
 It must be obvious, that the present paper can supply but a 
 meagre outline of the contents of the important and invaluable 
 works issued under the supeiintendence of the '* Irish Archgeological 
 Society." Even such a sketch, compendious and brief as it must 
 necessarily be, will at least redeem us from the charge of ingratitude, 
 and be some tribute to the merit of those high-minded and accom- 
 plished scholars, who have devoted so much of their time and talents 
 to the elucidation of the history of their native land, for which they 
 wiU be remembered with gratitude by their descendants ; while the 
 memoiy of those who have done nothing to advance the literaiy 
 
 the iconoclastic Archbishop Price, deserve the highest commendation. 
 The Rev. William Reeves, of Ballymena, the most erudite hagiographical 
 scholar and ecclesiastical historian yet produced by this country, wlio, in 
 the year 1850, presented the IMembers of our Archaeological Society with 
 the valuable and important volume noticed in the present paper. The 
 Rev. James Graves, of Kilkenny, has lately succeeded in forming an 
 association for preserving the monumental and literary antiquities of that 
 ancient city and its vicinity. He has in the press an elaborate work 
 on the history of the Cathedral of St. Canice, which, when published, 
 will form the most important and elegantly illustrated volume yet produced 
 on our provincial ecclesiastical and civil history. 
 
 To the exertions and influence of the above mentioned individuals, and of 
 other members of the University of Dublin, we owe the formation of the 
 great National INIuseum of the Royal Irish Academy, which, with only a 
 stipend of £300 per annum from a Government with a revenue of a mil- 
 lion per week, has, by private liberality, succeeded in forming the largest 
 and most complete collection of Celtic manuscripts and remains in existence. 
 
 It would be unjust to the ''memory of the dead" not to state, that the 
 late Professor James Mac Cullagh, LL.D., of Trinity College, Dublin, 
 and a mathematician of European celebrity, contributed largely to the for- 
 mation of the Academy's Museum. Among the principal articles he 
 presented was the magnificent "Cross of Cong," executed in the County 
 of Mayo, in the twelfth century, and purchased by him for one hundred 
 guineas. He also gave a large sum for an original manuscript of Colonel 
 O' Kelly's Macarice Excidium, which he deposited in the Academy's library. 
 The latter acquisition was, as we shall see, of the greatest importance, 
 as it elicited Mr. O'Callaghan's valuable annotations, which have set the 
 history of the Irish affairs of 1689 in a completely new hght, and re- 
 deemed the country from a disgraceful historical imputation. The un- 
 timely death of Dr. Mac Cullagh prevented the completion of his design 
 of printing a series of the most ancient Irish astronomical and medical 
 treatises, which, under his care, would have done much to advance the 
 reputation of our country abroad. This project will, we trust, not be over- 
 looked by his worthy successor in the chair of mathematics in our Uni- 
 versity . 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 17 
 
 reputation of their countiy, will be hereafter fouiid iu the same cate- 
 gory with that of the uoblemau* who regarded as a collection of fool- 
 ish trifles the great work, now esteemed one of the chief literary 
 glories of Italy. 
 
 The " Irish Archaeological Society" commenced its labom-s by pub- 
 lishing, in 1841, a thin volume, containing two " Tracts relating to 
 Ireland," the first of which is an Irish poem,f written by Cormacan 
 Etgeas, or the Sage^ A.D. 942, on the military circuit made round 
 Erin, in the preceding year, by Muircheartach, or Moriertagh Mac 
 Neill, Prince of Aileach, in Ulster, with "ten hundred heroes of the 
 race of Owen of the red weapons." 
 
 His object in this expedition was, " to facilitate his peacefid acces- 
 sion to the throne of Ireland, by impressing the conviction on the 
 minds of the Irish that he was the next most powerful, as well as 
 the most legitimate heir to the monarchy then existing." 
 
 The poem consists of two hundred and fifty-five ranns^ or stanzas, 
 detailing minutely all the circumstances connected with the cu'cuit. 
 The Bard carefully recounts the various locaHties through which the 
 army passed, and the tributes and gifts received from the Danish 
 and native Princes ; concluding with an account of the return of the 
 Irish troops and their hostages to the palace of Aileach,:{: and a 
 curious description of the prolonged festivities with which that event 
 was commemorated. 
 
 The present Viscount O'Neil, now in his seventy-first year, is the 
 twenty- ninth in descent from the hero of this expedition, and with 
 him the Une of " Muircheartach of the golden locks" becomes ex- 
 
 * " Le Cardinal Hippolyte d'Este, a qui 1' ' Orlando Furioso,' fut dedie de- 
 manda a I'auteur, ' Messer Lodovico, dove Diavolo avete pigliato tante co- 
 glionerie ?' Leon X. fut infiniment plus debonnaire pour cet Auteur. 
 Presqu' au mesrae tems qu'il foudro) a ses anathemes contre Martin Luther, 
 il publia une Bulle en faveur des poesies de Louys Arioste, mena9ant 
 d' excommunication ceux qui les bliimeroient, ou erapescheroient le profit 
 de rimprimeur." — P. Bayle. 
 
 t The Circuit of Ireland, by Muircheartach Mac Neill, Prince of Ail- 
 each ; a Poem, ivritten in the year DCCCCXLIL, by Cormacan Eigeas, 
 Chief Poet of the North of Ireland : nmo for the first time printed ; with a 
 Translation and Notes, by John O' Donovan. Dublin : for the Irish Archae- 
 ological Society. 1841. 
 
 I The ruins of this great Cyclopjean fortress, formerly the residence of 
 the northern O'Neills, are still to be seen in the county of Donegal, about 
 a mile from the boundary of that of Derry, on the summit of a small 
 mountain, 802 feet high. 
 
18 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 tinct for ever. The conclnding tract* in the Society's volume is s 
 reprint of an exceedingly rare pamphlet of sixteen pages, wi'itten iu 
 1589, by Robert Payne, an Englishman, who became manager ia 
 Ireland for twenty-five of his countrymen, each of whom had " under- 
 taken" four hundred acres of the great estate wrested from the last 
 Geraldme Ead of Desmond, in 1583. 
 
 The writer's desire was to see Elizabeth's project of planting all 
 Ireland with English settlers fully carried out ; and for the promotion 
 of this object he paints in glowing colours all the natural advantages 
 which the island possessed of soil and climate. The natives, he tells 
 us, have been much maligned by designing knaves ; " the better sorte 
 are verie civil and honestly given, the most of them greatly inclined 
 to husbandrie," and so hospitable, that " although they did never 
 see you befoi'e, they will make you the best cheare their country 
 yieldeth for two or three dayes, aixl take not anything therefore- 
 They keepe their promise faithfully, and are more desirous of peace 
 than our English men, for that in time of wan-es they are more 
 charged, and also they are fatter praies for the enemie who respect- 
 eth no person." The authw gives many interesting particulars of 
 the prices of the various necessaries of life, and other productions of 
 the country, which, he says, are so cheap, that one can keep a better 
 house in Ireland for fifty pounds a-year, than in England for fom* 
 times that amount. Although very brief, this little tract gives an 
 excellent account of the state of things encountered in Ireland by the 
 first English " undertakers," in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 The Latin annals of Ireland, f ascribed, on the authority of 
 Ussher, to James Grace, of the Franciscan Convent of Kilkenny, ex- 
 
 * "^ hrife description of Ireland: made in this yeere, 1589, hy Robert 
 Payne. unto'XXV. of his partners, for whom he is undertaker there. Truelif 
 published verbatim, according to his letters, by Nich. Gorsan, one of the said 
 partners, for that he would his countrymen should be partakers of the many 
 good Notes therein conteined. With diuers Notes taken out of others the 
 Authoures letters, icritten to his said partners, sithenes the first impression, 
 well worth the reading. Edited by Aquilla Smith, M.D., M.R.I. A. 
 Dublin : for the Irish ArchEeological Society. 1841. 
 
 t Jacohi Grace, Kilkenniensis, Annales Hibernice. Edited, with a Trans- 
 lation and Notes, by the Rev. Richard Butler, M.R.I. A. Dublin : for the 
 Irish Archaeological Society. 1842. 
 
 The family of Grace, one of the most ancient and honorable in Ireland, 
 descend from the Norman Chevalier, Rairaond, surnamed "Crassus," or le 
 Gras, who, by his marriage with Basilia, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, be- 
 came possessed of the vast territory in the County Kilkenny, known as 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 1 9 
 
 tend from A.D. 1074 to the year 1514, and contain much valuable 
 information relative to the affairs of the " Pale" and the English co- 
 lonists. *'We must not, however, suppose that these annals were 
 to the monks the dry and bare catalogues which they are to us, or 
 
 Grace's Country, or Tir na-n Grasa, and which originally covered an extent 
 of eighty thousand acres. 
 
 His descendants becoming Barons of Courtstown, were long the chief fa- 
 mily in Kilkenny, where, for many years before the settlement there of the 
 Butlers, founders of the illustrious house of Orraond, they enjoyed an 
 almost regal power, and endeared themselves to the people by their mu- 
 niticent hospitality and the number of religious houses which they en- 
 dowed. Almaric le Gras, Baron of Courtstown, was, in 1385, " by royal 
 licence," permitted to contract an alliance with Tibina, daughter of 
 O'Meagher, Prince of the territory of Ikerrin (now incorporated with the 
 county Tipperary), " for the better preservation of the peace of the county 
 Kilkenny." From this period the Graces continued to fraternize and in- 
 termarry with the natives ; and it is curious to find the descendants of the 
 Norman Chevalier adopting Irish surnames, and commemorating their 
 achievements in Gaelic songs. In an English version of one of these com- 
 positions, which is entitled " Grasagh-abS," or " The Graces for ever!" 
 their slogan or war-cry, we find the following stanzas : — 
 
 " Courtstown ! thy walls rise in beauty and pride, 
 From thy watch-tower's summit the bold foe is descried, 
 Though the hearts of thy children %\ith courage o'erflow. 
 Still their strength is the war-shout of Grasacjh-abo. 
 
 Courtstown! thou home of the great and renown'd. 
 Thy bulwarks what heroes of battle surround, 
 The Shees, Rooths, and ShortaUs, whose bosoms still glow. 
 To Join in the conflict with Grasagh-ab6.'" 
 
 Colonel Richard Grace, the personal friend of Strafford and of Ormonde, 
 served Charles I. with distinguished reputation in England, and was the last 
 person of distinction who held out against Cromwell in Ireland; from which 
 he passed with a number of his countrymen into France, and subsequently 
 into Spain, where they followed the fortunes of the Royal exiles. He was 
 so highly esteemed by Queen Henrietta Maria, that she entrusted the Duke 
 of York to his sole care, when he secretly fled for refuge into Spain ; and 
 a letter, written in 1658, is still extant, acknowledging the receipt of a 
 thousand gold pieces from one of the Graces, for the use of the Royal fugi- 
 tives. On the Restoration, Colonel Richard Grace accompanied the Royal 
 family to England, as Chamberlain to the Duke of York ; and when the 
 wars of 1689 broke out, "replacing," says a late writer, " the helmet on 
 his hoary head, he discovered all his juvenile ardour in battle, and all that 
 contempt of fortune and of life, as light in the balance with duty, which he 
 had manifested in the pride of his age." Appointed Governor of the im- 
 portant town of Athlone, he prepared to resist, with a slender garrison, the 
 immense and formidable army by which he was beleagured. When sum- 
 moned to surrender, he returned a passionate defiance — " These are my 
 terms," said he, discharging a pistol in the air ; " these only 1 will give or 
 receive ; and when my provisions are consumed, I will defend till I eat my 
 old boots." By his heroic conduct and military talents he obliged the 
 enemy to raise the seige, and fell fighting in the royal cause, in 1691. 
 
 No less faithful to the national or royal cause was John Grace, Baron 
 of Courtstown, one of the Council of the Confederation of 1642 ; his 
 
20 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 that the inhabitants of the monastery were satisfied with that modi- 
 cum of knowledge which we have inherited fi'om them. Every 
 name entered in their registry at its entiy had its own peculiar his- 
 tory, and that history was preserved in the traditions of the chapter- 
 estate, confiscated by the regicides, was restored by Cromwell, as a token 
 of personal admiration for his manly and generous enemy, who never failed 
 to perform the offices of humanity, even to the soldiers who were in arms 
 against him. In 1686, this brave and good man was appointed High Sheriff 
 and Lieutenant-Governor of the County of Kilkenny ; and, in three years 
 afterwards, he represented the same County in Parliament. On the Revo- 
 lution, he raised and equipped a regiment of foot and a troop of horse, at 
 his own expense, for the service of King James, whom he further assisted 
 with money and plate, amounting, it is said, to fourteen thousand pounds 
 sterling. Possessing a high character and great local influence, he was 
 early solicited, with splendid promises of favour, to join William's 
 party ; but yielding to the strong impulse of honorable feelings, he in- 
 stantly, on perusing the proposal to this effect from one of the Duke of 
 Schomberg's emissaries, seized a card accidentally lying near him, and re- 
 turned this indignant answer upon it — " Go, tell your master I despise his 
 offer ; tell him that honor and conscience are dearer to a gentleman than 
 all the wealth and titles a prince can bestow." The card, which he sent 
 uncovered by the bearer of the rejected offer, happening to be the six of 
 hearts, is to this day very generally known by the name of " Grace s card,^' 
 in the city of Kilkenny. This gallant soldier died in 1690; his regiment, 
 however, found a fitting commander in his son, Robert Grace, under whom 
 it performed prodigies of valor. At the unequal battle of Aughrim, where 
 15,000 badly armed Irish made such a gallant stand against upwards of 
 30,000 of the finest troops of Europe, the noble enthusiasm of " Grace's 
 Regiment" evinced, we are told, a patriotic devotion that might dignify a 
 Spartan band. ' ' Of that fine body, selected from the flower of the youth of 
 Grace's countnj, not fifty returned to their homes, where they were re- 
 ceived with scorn and reproaches, till their chieftain's testimony confirmed 
 their claim to the same heroic intrepidity which had distinguished their 
 fallen comrades. The plaintive strains excited by this event were the as- 
 pirations of a whole people ; they are still preserved, and still elevate the 
 peasant's heart with sentiments of hereditary pride and national feeling." 
 In consequence of their unshaken loyalty to their unfortunate Sovereign, 
 in times — 
 
 " When treason bar'd her bloody arm, and madden'd round the land," 
 the Graces were stripped, by forfeitures, of a great portion of their ancient 
 extensive possessions. " Thus, after a period of nearly five centuries and 
 a half, during which the house of Butler alone was paramount to that of 
 Grace, the existence of the latter, as a Kilkenny family, may be said to ter- 
 minate, as the small estate of Holdenstown is the only property they at 
 present possess there. Henceforth they are to be heard of in the Queen's 
 County, where the representative of the Ballylinch branch became seated ; 
 and his descendant is now, by the extinction of the line of Courtstown, the 
 head of the family." 
 
 In latter times, the Graces became connected by marriage with the most 
 noble families of England, and have been highly distinguished by their at- 
 tachment to literature and the fine arts. Sheffield Grace, F.S.A., has 
 left a lasting memorial of his elegant learning and munificence in his 
 privately printed " Memoirs of the Family of Grace, 1822," a magnificently 
 illustrated work, and the only piece of Irish family history extant. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 2 1 
 
 room and of the cloister. From the founder of the house and the 
 giver of broad lauds, to the bequeather of a cope and the increaser 
 of then- holiday pittance, all their benefactors had their places in the 
 grateful memory of the brotherhood; and the novice and the lay- 
 brother were often told why this baron bestowed the rich farm, and 
 why it was leased to such a knight ; why this lady founded an altar 
 and a chaplaincy ; and why such a burgess was commemorated with 
 a double lection. Every name in the registry was made the text 
 of some grave homily, or recalled some story, kept alive, not only by 
 being repeated on every recm-ring anniversary, among the habitual 
 sitters round the refectory fire, and amongst the pacers in the clois- 
 ters, but by being told to the knights and squires who nsed the 
 monastery as an inn, and to the pilgi'ims and visitors fi'om other 
 religious houses, who there claimed charitable hospitality." 
 
 This work of Grace, forming the first of the Society's series of the 
 Latin Annals of Ireland, has been admirably translated and edited 
 by the Rev. Richard Butler, who is deeply versed in the original 
 sources of Anglo- Irish history. 
 
 An insult offered to Congal, Prince of Ulster, at a banquet held by 
 Donal, King of Ireland, in his newly erected fort of Dun na n-Gedh^ 
 or the " Dun of the Spears," on the south side of the river Boyne, 
 near the great Pagan tumulus of Dowth, is supposed to have led to 
 the battle fought A.D. 637, at Magh Rath (the Plain of the Rath) or 
 Mou-a, in the county of Down ; in which, according to the prediction 
 of St. Columba, a large number of Britons, Picts, and Albanian Scots 
 were defeated by the men of Erin, after a sanguinary engagement for 
 six days. "This," says a learned writer of the last century, "is one of 
 the most important events in Scottish history ; and yet, through the 
 destruction of records, in the time of Edward I., the latter historians 
 of North Britain were strangers to it." The bardic accounts of this 
 battle, and of the banquet by which it was caused, form the third 
 of the Society's volumes.* It would be difficult to over-estimate 
 the historic value of such documents ; the numerous particulars they 
 contain of the manners and customs of the old Celtic tribes, together 
 
 * The Banquet of Dun na n-Gedh, and the Battle of Magh Rath ; an an- 
 cient Historical Tale. Now first published , from a MS. in the Library of 
 Trinity College, Dublin. With a Translation and Notes, by John O' Donovan. 
 Publin : for the Irish Archseological Society. 1842. 
 
22 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 with theii* minute descriptions of persons, costumes, arms, and all 
 other details connected with the events to which they relate, are so 
 interesting and important, that we trust our literary antiquaries will 
 see the propriety of directing their attention to the publication of a 
 series of the ancient historic tales* of the Irish, numbers of which 
 are still preserved, signally disproving the flippant assertion, that no 
 materials exist for a civil history of the country, before the arrival 
 of the Anglo-Normans. 
 
 * One of the most important of the ancient Irish historic tales is the 
 '' Tain ho Cuailgne," or " Narration of the Cattle-spoil of Collon," in the 
 present County of Louth. This document, according to Mr. Curry, is as 
 old as the seventh century, as is evident from the character of the language, 
 manners, customs, and habits of the people mentioned in it ; and it con- 
 tains no reference whatever to anything Christian. A fine copy of this tract 
 is preserved in the " Leabhar na h-Uidhre," or the ''Book of the Dun 
 Cow," now in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. This " Book" 
 was written early in the twelfth century ; the writer of it died in the year 
 1106, and he only compiled it from other works, which he quotes; as, for 
 instance, the " Book of Drom Sneacht," compiled before A.D. 400; the 
 '^Leabhar Biiidhe" or " Yellow Book of Slane ;" the " Book of Glengiven," 
 and others. The " Book of the Dun Cow," (so called, because the vellum 
 on which part of it is written was made from the hide of the Dun Cow of 
 St.Ciaran of Clonmacnois,) passed into the possession of the clan of O'Donel 
 of Donegal. There is a memorandum in the book itself, written in the 
 year 1345, which says that it was then in the hands of the O'Conor of 
 Sligo, and that he had obtained it in ransom for John O'Docharty, chieftain 
 of Ardmire, in the County of Donegal, whom he had taken prisoner. 
 There is also a subsequent entry, written in 1470, which says — " Pray for 
 Hugh O'Donncl, who forcibly took this book from the men of Connacht, 
 after they had held it during the reigns of ten Kings of Sligo." " It is much 
 to be lamented," says the late erudite George Ellis, " that the Irish anti- 
 quaries should neglect to give us a series of their ancient popular tales, 
 with a simple and literal English translation." Such a publication would, 
 we may observe, tend to throw light on the history of European romantic 
 fiction, the origin of which has been hitherto conjecturally, and, as it is ad- 
 mitted, without sufficient foundation, ascribed by Mallet and Percy to the 
 Danes, and by Salmasius and Warton to the Saracens. Documents are, 
 however, preserved, written at a very remote period, which tell us that " the 
 four higher orders of the Irish poets, namely, the OUamli, Anrnth, Cli, and 
 Cano, were obliged to have seven times fifty chief stories, and twice fifty sub- 
 stories, to repeat for kings and chieftains." The subjects of the chief stories 
 were demolitions, cattle-spoils, courtships, battles, caves, voyages, tragedies, 
 feasts, sieges, adventures, elopements and plunders. The particular titles of 
 of these tales are given in a vellum manuscript of the twelfth century, now 
 in the Library of the University of Dublin. The foreign philologists, it 
 may be added, Jiave been unable satisfactorily to decide on the etymon of 
 the name of the species of romance called lai, which, according to Le 
 Grand, differed from the " Fabliaux," in being interspersed with musical 
 interludes. This word seems, however, to correspond exactly with the 
 Celtic noun laoi (pronounced lee), which is applied by the native Irish to 
 compositions similar to those referred to by the French writer. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 23 
 
 Dymmok's " Treatice''* furnishes us with an excellent account of 
 the state of the country in the latter part of the sixteenth century, 
 and contains some valuable statistical information relative to the 
 number of the English and native forces. The original jouraals ap- 
 pended of the military operations in the year 1599, form excellent 
 counterparts to the history of the same events given by the Irish 
 annalists. 
 
 The short annals, f said by Ware to have been compiled at the 
 Abbey of Multifernan, in Westmeath, extend to the year 1264, and 
 are generally beUeved to be the oldest Latin annals of Ireland 
 extant. 
 
 Of the numerous unpublished Irish legislative enactments, one of 
 the greatest importance, in its own day, and probably still the most 
 interesting to the student of our history, is the celebrated " Statute J 
 of Kilkenny;" so called from having been enacted at a parliament 
 held in that town, in the year 1367, by Lionel, Duke of Clarence, 
 second son of Edward the Third of England. The object of this 
 statute was to regulate the internal government of the English 
 colony, and to arrest the decay into which the"PaZe"§ was rapidly 
 falling. For at this period, says om* authority, " many of the English 
 of the said land, forsaking the English language, manners, modes of 
 riding, laws and usages, live and govern themselves according to 
 the manners, fashion, and language of the Irish enemy; and also 
 have made divers marriages and alliances between themselves and 
 the Irish enemy aforesaid; whereby the said land and the liege 
 people thereof, the Enghsh language, the allegiance due to our lord 
 the King, and the Enghsh laws, these are put in subjection and 
 
 * A Treatice of Ireland, by John Dymmok. Now first published, from a 
 Manuscript preserved in the British Museum. With Notes, by the Rev, 
 Richard Butler, A.B., M.R.I. A. DubUn : for the I. A. S. 1842. 
 
 t Annates de Monte Fernandi (Annals of Multifernan). Edited by Aquilla 
 Smith, M.D., M.R.IA. Dublin : for the I. A. S. 1842. 
 
 X A Statute of the fortieth year of King Edward III, enacted in a 
 Parliament, held in Kilkenny, A. D. 1367, before Lionel, Diike of Clarence, 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Now first printed, from a Manuscript in the 
 Library of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth ; with a 
 Translation and Notes, by James Hardiman, M.R.I.A. Dublin : for the 
 Irish Archaeological Society. 1843. 
 
 § The Pale, so frequently referred to, was the small tract around 
 Dublin; and the only portion of Ireland in which, till the seventeenth 
 century, the English power was fully acknowledged. 
 
24 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 decayed, and the Irish enemy exalted and raised up, contrary 
 to reason." All commerce and connections vnth the natives were 
 accordingly rendered penal, and in fact, the " Statute of Kilkenny " 
 may be regarded as an open declaration of perpetual hostility against 
 the persons, language, and customs of the Irish ; a measure which the 
 English government was totally incompetent to enforce. The very 
 town of Kilkenny, in which the Parliament sat, being for its own 
 protection, obliged to pay a heavy annual tribute to the surrounding 
 native chieftams ; and the principal Anglo-Norman Nobles continued 
 to contract friendship and alliances with the Irish. And, says the 
 contemporary native writer, " the old chieftains of Erin prospered 
 under those princely English lords, who were our chief rulers, and 
 who had given up their foreignness for a pure mind, their surliness for 
 good manners, their stubborness for sweet mildness, and who had 
 relinquished their perverseness for hospitahty." 
 
 Mr. James Hardiman's intimate acquaintance with the manu- 
 script Irish records enabled him to illustrate this singular "Statute" 
 in a most attractive and interesting manner; his annotations forcibly 
 demonstrate the value and importance of ancient legal documents 
 as materials for a country's history. 
 
 Hy-Many* or Maine's territory, extended in ancient times from 
 Clontuskert, near Lanesborough, in the county of Roscommon, 
 southwards to the boundary of Thomond or the county of Clare, and 
 from Athlone westwards, to Sefin and Athenry, in the present 
 county of Galway. This district took its name from the chieftain 
 Maine " Jifor," or <' the Great,^' head of a colony which, in the fifth 
 centmy, migi-ated from Oriel in Ulster, seized the territory referred 
 to, and reduced its old Fu*-Bolgic or Belgic inhabitants to servitude. 
 The semi-mythic account of this migi'ation, given in the life of Saint 
 Greallan, patron of Hy-Many, is a most singular and interesting 
 illustration of the customs and superstitions of the old Irish clans. 
 
 The Clan Kelly, chief tribe of this region, took its name from 
 Maine's descendant CellacJi, (i. e., the church founder,) who flourished 
 
 *TJie Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, commonly called O' Kelly's Country. 
 Now first published from the Book of Lecan, a Manuscript in the Library of 
 the Royal Irish Academy ; with a Translation and Notes, and a Map of Hy- 
 Many, by John O' Donovan. DubUn : for the Irish Archaeol. Society. 1843. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 25 
 
 in the ninth century ; the present appellation O'Kelly being a cor- 
 ruption of the Celtic words Ui Cellaighy signifying literally, the 
 descendants of Cellach. 
 
 The other chief families of Hy-Many, Mac Eochada or Keogh,* 
 O'Madden, O'jS'eachtaiu or Naghten, O'Maeilalaidh or Lally, Mac 
 Aedhagain or Egan, and Mac Cnaimhin or Mac Nevin, held certain 
 hereditary offices under the head of the district ; and one of the most 
 valuable portions of the document before us is that which gives the 
 details of the singular Celtic government and laws of " O'Kelly's 
 Country," before the coming of the stranger. Of the many eminent 
 men sprung fi'om the chief fomily of this district, we may mention 
 Colonel Charles O'Kelly, a distinguished officer, and author of the 
 " Macarice Excidium^''^ noticed in the present paper. Su* William 
 O'Kelly, of Aughrim, who was appointed in 1699, by the Em- 
 peror Leopold, to the chairs of Philosophy and Histoiy, and 
 chosen by the Austrian states, as head of their new College at 
 Vienna; Count Palatine, King-at-arms, and Poet-Laureat, to three 
 successive Emperors. Baron O'Kelly, of the' branch of Lisgallen, 
 was Major- General under the famous Marshal Count Daun, at whose 
 victory over Frederick the Great of Prussia, on 18th June, 1757, 
 in the battle of Cotchemitz, or Kolin, the Lish Major-General was 
 selected by the Austrian Marshal, to cany the account of his success 
 to Vienna. f Count O'Kelly of Aughrim, "ancien employe du Conseil 
 Supreme de Noblesse du Royaume des Pays Bas," has displayed 
 much elegant erudition in his "Essai historique sur I'lrlande," pub- 
 lished at Brussells, in 1837. 
 
 The family of Lally de Tollendal, J so celebrated in modem histoiy, 
 
 * The father of our eloquent member for Athlone is at present the 
 principal representative of this once powerful clan. 
 
 f This eminent officer was afterwards advanced to the rank of Lieutenant- 
 General, and died in 1767- His wife, we may here remark, was the Coun- 
 tess de Marcolini, a favorite of, and maid of honor to, the Empress Maria 
 Theresa ; her only daughter, Mademoiselle O'Kelly, was one of the youth- 
 ful companions of, or in other words, brought up with, the daughter of 
 the empress, Marie Antoinette (afterwards Queen of France), and finally 
 married her own cousin, le Comte de Marcolini. As a curious specimen 
 of minute investigation and research, we would desire to refer the reader to 
 Note ii. of Mr. O'Callaghan's " Macarice Excidium," in which a list is given 
 of all the officers of the name of O'Kelly in the army of King James. 
 
 J The head of this family, an officer in the Irish army of King James II. 
 retired to France after the Capitulation of Limerick. His son, the Count 
 
26 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 descended from the old warlike sept of O'Maeilalaidh {G* Mullalhj), 
 of Hy-Many, and took its title from the castle of Tolendal {Tulach 
 na Dala, or The Hill of the Meeting), four miles from Tuam. That 
 enlightened philanthropist, the Rev. Samnel Madden, founder of the 
 Royal Dubhn Society, and of the " Madden Premiums," for the en- 
 couragement of learning in the University of Dublin, and " whose 
 name," said Dr. Johnson, " Ireland ought to honour," is supposed to 
 have also descended from one of, the old tribes of " O'Kelly's country." 
 He was, indeed, a worthy representative of Owen O'Madden, head of 
 
 Lally de Tollendal, became Viceroy of India, and Grand Cross of the 
 Order of Saint Esprit. In 1760 he maintained for eight months the town of 
 Pondicherry against the English, under their gallant Irish General, Sir Eyre 
 Coote, to whom he capitulated, after exerting every expedient which skill 
 or valour could suggest. In 1766, the Count de Tollendal was, by an in- 
 famous and illegal arret, hurried to the scaffold, with more than savage 
 barbarity. His son, who at that period was studying, under the name 
 of Trophime, at the College d' Harcourt, was only acquainted with the 
 secret of his birth at the very moment he was about to be deprived of 
 his parent. On this painful subject he expresses himself as follows: — 
 '* Je n'ai appris le nom de ma mere que plus de quatre ans apres l' avoir 
 perdue, celui de mon pere, qu' un seul jour avant de le perdre ; j'ai 
 couru pour lui porter mon premier hommage et mon eternel adieu, pour 
 lui faire entendre au moins la voix d'un fils parmi les cris de ses bour- 
 reaux, pour I'embrasser du moins sur 1' echafaud ou il allait perir. J'ai 
 couru vainement — on avait, hate I'instant. Je n'ai plus trouve mon pere ; 
 je n'ai vU que la trace de son sang." After this dreadful event young Lally 
 continued for some time to pursue his studies at the same college, under the 
 inspection of his cousin. Mademoiselle Dillon. Having conceived the de- 
 termination to obtain the reversal of his father's attainder, he unceasingly 
 pursued that object, and finally succeeded. His eloquence, filial piety, and 
 the energy of his pleadings, having interested in his favour the most illus- 
 trious persons of his time, and amongst the rest Voltaire, who receiving the 
 intelligence of his friend's success, became reanimated for an instant, on the 
 bed of death, and wrote the following billet to Lally : — 
 
 " Le mourant ressuscite en apprenant cette grande nouvelle : il embrasse 
 bien tendrement M. de Lally ; it voit que le roi est le defenseur de la justice, 
 
 il mourra content 26 Mai, 1778." These were the last lines ever penned 
 
 by the great French author, *' who," says a late writer, *' was always a friend 
 to virtue in distress." 
 
 Lally Tollendal is regarded as one of the early and rational friends of free- 
 dom in France. Endeavouring to arrest the atrocities of the Revolution, in 
 preparing which he had been no inconsiderable actor, he did not hesitate to 
 attack Mirabeau himself, to whom he addressed that memorable sentence — 
 *' On peut avoir de I'esprit de grandes idees, et etre un tyran." We will 
 not here further pursue the history of this illustrious descendant of the 
 old Irish clan of the " O'Muliallys of the heavy blows." He died in 1830, a 
 Peer of France and Member of the Royal French Academy, of which, we 
 are told, he was a distinguished ornament, both from the^ high merit of his 
 numerous literary productions, as well as from his splendid oratorical 
 talents. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 27 
 
 the tribe in the fourteenth century, and who, according to the old 
 Irish chronicler, was famed for " the splendour of his hospitality to 
 the great and the humble, for there was not a house which the 
 Enghsh chieftains wished more to frequent than the house of Owen, 
 from their knowledge alike of his truth and hospitahty, and from 
 the splendour of his mansion to receive them ; for this fair prince 
 erected for a habitation a strong castle of stone and fine timber, the 
 like of which had not been erected by any sub-chief in Erin. He 
 also repaired the churches of the country in general, and he taught 
 truth to its chieftains, and kept his people from treachery and fra- 
 tricide, and checked their evil customs and dissensions, and taught 
 charity and humanity in his goodly districts." 
 
 The Mortiloge* of Christ Church, Dublin, contains a catalogue 
 of the various benefactors to that monastic institution, before the 
 Reformation, arranged according to the days of the year on which 
 their deaths took place. In general, the gifts bestowed are parti- 
 cularized, and afibrd curious information relative to the social 
 state of the people. The donations consisted of houses, lands, 
 vestments, plate, and money. A few of the entries will serve to 
 give an idea of the general character of the " Mortiloge." Gerald, 
 Earl of Kildare, we are told, presented, among other articles, his 
 best cloak, of purple cloth of gold, to make vestments. John Dow- 
 gan, merchant, bequeathed a silver bowl, weighing twenty-two 
 ounces, with directions to have it fashioned into a chalice; and 
 Thomas Montayng restored, without payment, the Mass-book of St. 
 Mary's chapel, which had been pledged with him for thirteen shil- 
 lings and four pence. 
 
 All the gifts were carefidly registered and the prayers of the 
 community offered regularly for the welfare of the pious donors. 
 " Nor was it only gratitude, and the wish to maintain the credit of 
 their house before the visitors, that induced the monks to fill up in 
 conversation the bare outline of their registers with traditional his- 
 
 * The Book of Obits and Martyrology of the Cathedral Church of the 
 Holy Trinity, commonly called Christ Church, Dublin. Edited, from the 
 Original Manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, by John 
 Clarke Crosthwaite, A.M., of Trinity College, Dublin, Rector of St. Mary- 
 at-Hill, and St. Andrew Hubbard, London. With aii Introduction, by James 
 Henthorn Todd, D.D., V.PR.IA., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 Dublin : for the I. A. S. 1844. 
 
28 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 tories ; many of them had the strong interest of relationship, or of fa- 
 mily dependence, connected with the names recorded; and it was 
 pleasant to tell how their fathers had fought in the battle in which 
 their benefactor was killed, whose tomb was in the choir, and whose 
 death was in the Mortiloge. With respect, then, to occurrences in 
 its own neighbourhood, or referring to its special benefactors, the 
 date and the succession was almost all that was wanted by the in- 
 mates of a religious house, and these were supplied by the driest of 
 their chronicles ; the cloister tradition supplied the rest, giving to the 
 merest outline fulness of detail and depth of colouring." 
 
 The Martyrology is an abridgement of Ado's, that in general use 
 at the period, among religious orders, with the addition of several 
 Irish saints. This, to us the most important part of the work, has 
 been fully and admirably illustrated by the Rev. J. H. Todd, from 
 the Irish manuscript sources, and especially from the singular docu- 
 ment known as the Festology of St. Oengus Cele De,* or, Oengus, 
 the Servant of God. 
 
 In the introduction we find a vast amount of hagiographical eru- 
 dition, without which many portions of the compilation would be of 
 little service to the ordinary student. The " Book of Christ Church" 
 is the only Irish monastic ritual yet pubUshed. The typography of 
 
 * This is a metrical account of the lives of Irish Saints, compiled in the 
 ninth century by Oengus, who was for some time a monk of the celebrated 
 Abbey of Tamhlacht, or Tallaght, near Dublin, and wassurnamed Cele Ue, 
 (or Servant of God,) from his great devotion and sanctity. The Felire is 
 written in Rinn-ard (the high-pointed metre) consisting of six syllables in 
 every verse, or twelve in every half ra?i?i or quatrain. Of this kind of verse 
 there are three different varieties to be found in the works of the more 
 ancient Irish poets. Oengus was the author of many other works relating 
 to the history of the Saints of Ireland, " all of which," says Dr. Todd, " are 
 still extant, but, to the disgrace of this country, extant only in manuscripts, 
 which, in another generation, will prohahhj become illegible, or at least the 
 ample means we now possess for illustrating and translating them will be se- 
 riously diminished, if not wholly lost." The researches of the Secretary of 
 our Archaeological Society have lately brought to light a manuscript copy 
 of high antiquity, and in beautiful preservation, of that important work, 
 which has caused so much discussion, entitled " Saltair na Hann," or the 
 "Psalter of the Poems," the publication of which would be of the highest 
 value to the lexicographer and the philologist. 
 
 Oengus Cele De is commemorated in the Irish calendar on the 18th Fe- 
 bruary, and is one of the many native Saints of the old Irish church. He 
 must not, however, be confounded with "the Culdees," " who," says Bishop 
 Keith, "were apparently, from Coluraba's time to the twelfth century, the 
 only monks and clergy in Scotland, and all Irish." 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 29 
 
 this volume is tho most exquisite specimen of the art, hitherto exe- 
 cuted iu Ireland. Its calendars and rubrics rival in beauty and 
 brilliancy the productions of the world-famed press of Hanicq, of 
 Mechlin. 
 
 The Priory of "All Hallows" or All Saints, founded in the 
 twelfth century, by the notorious Dermod Mac MurchacI, King of 
 Leinster, stood on the ground now occupied by the University of 
 Dublin. On the dissolution of the religious houses, in the reign of 
 Henry VIII., that king granted the buildings and site of this estab- 
 lishment to the citizens of Dublin, who, iu 1592, transfeiTed it to 
 theu' Archbishop, Adam Loftus, for the puipose of erecting an Uni- 
 versity, then and since styled " the College of the Holy and Undi- 
 vided Trinity, near Dublin." The documents printed in the volume 
 before us* relate exclusively to the property and affairs of the monas- 
 tery, and must ever prove deeply interesting to the local antiquarian. 
 
 The present baronies of Can-a, Erris, and Tirawly, in the County 
 of Mayo, and the barony of Tireragh, in the County of Sligo, were 
 formerly known as Tir Fhiachrcich^ or Tireragh, j" signifying the 
 Land of the Sons of Fiachra, who was king of Connacht in the fourth 
 century. 
 
 This territory was originally possessed by the clans of O'Dowda, 
 O'Shaughnessy, O'Clerigh, and Mac Firbis. The two latter families 
 were the hereditaiy antiquarians and historians of the district, and to 
 their labours we are indebted for the preservation of many of our 
 most important historical documents. 
 
 The O'Dowdas, who take that name from their ancestor, Duhhda, 
 signifying literally " the Dark Hero" were the chiefs of Tireragh ; 
 and have been ever distinguished by their gigantic stature and intre- 
 pidity. In the last century, members of this family were, for their 
 eminent military services abroad, advanced to the rank of nobles, in 
 
 * Registrum Prioratus Omnium Sanctorum juxta Dublin. Edited, from a 
 MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin ; loith Additions from other 
 sources, and Notes by the Rev. Richard Butler, M.R.I. A. Dublin : for the 
 I. A. S. 1845. 
 
 t The Genealogies, Tribes, and Customs of Hy-Fiachrach, commonly called 
 O'Dowda s Country. Now first published, from the Book of Lecan, in the 
 Library of the Royal Irish Academy, and from the Genealogical MS. ofDuald 
 Mac Firbis, in the library of Lord Roden ; ivith a Translation and Notes, and 
 a Map of Hy-Fiachrach, by John O' Donovan. Dublin ; for the I. A. S. 1844. 
 
30 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 Venice and in Germanj. The present representatives of the clan 
 are Tadhg or Thaddieus O'Dowda, Esq., of Bunnyconnelan, in the 
 county of Mayo, and Robert O'Dowda, Esq., Registrar of the Su- 
 preme Court of Calcutta. 
 
 The clan of O'Shaughnessy, in old times, held extensive posses- 
 sions at and near Gort. A Latin author of the last century, speak- 
 ing of them, says — " Little must he know of Ireland who hath not 
 heard of the antiquity, grandeur, and loyalty of this great family." 
 Descended fi'om Giiaire,* surnamed the " hospitable," king of Con- 
 nacht in the seventh century, they were ever remarkable for their 
 munificence and liberality. A writer who travelled through Ireland 
 and the Continent, in the times of Charles the First, tells us, that 
 the O'Shaughnessys then excelled in elegant hospitality all the no- 
 bility of Connacht, with the sole exception of the Marquis of Clan- 
 Ricard. The lands of the O'Shaughnessys, forfeited in consequence 
 of their attachment to the cause of King James the Second, were 
 granted, for a term of years, by WilHam III., to Sir Thomas Pren- 
 dergast, whose character has been depicted, by Swift, f in the darkest 
 colours, as a sordid betrayer of his friends, and a relentless persecutor 
 of the Clergy of the Established Chm*ch. Owing to this loss, Wil- 
 liam O'Shaughnessy entered the French service, where he died in 
 1744, having attained to the rank of Colonel. On his death, his 
 cousin, Colman O'Shaughnessy, titular Bishop of Ossory, essayed at 
 law to recover the property of his ancestors. The suit was continued 
 by his brother Robuck, J whose son Joseph, assisted by his relatives, 
 took forcible possession of the mansion-house of Gort ; on which oc- 
 casion the bells of Athenry and of Gal way were rung for joy. The 
 whole clan believed that the strangers were defeated ; and the Irish 
 poets of the locality sun| that the rightful hen* was restored, and that 
 the old splendour of the O'Shaughnessys was about to be renewed in 
 the halls of their fathers. This triumph was, however, but of short 
 duration. All the efi"orts of the O'Shaughnessys were rendered abor- 
 tive by the influence of Prendergast's representatives, who re- 
 
 * " Cofial le Guaire," " Hospitable as Guaire," is a proverb in constant 
 use among the Irish peasantry. 
 
 t See the " liegion Club." 
 
 X This name is a corruption of the Irish Reahhach, which is almost syno- 
 nymous with Dathi, and signifies one expert in feats of arms. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 3 1 
 
 obtained possession ; and are said, for carrying on their suit, to have 
 borrowed eight thousand pounds from Lord Chancellor Mansfield, 
 which sum was charged on, and paid by, the estate. Having been 
 thus stripped of theu' inheritance, the old clan of O'Shaughnessy sunk 
 into obscurity. A few months ago, the Gort property was wrested 
 from its late proprietors by the " Incumbered Estates Commission," 
 which is effectively fulfilling the predictions of the Irish Jacobite 
 poets, who never ceased to sing "that Providence would only suffer 
 the foreign churls, who had usurped the lands of the old English 
 and of the noble Gaels of Erin, to hold their white mansions tran- 
 siently."* 
 
 To the O'Clerighswe owe many valuable Irish historical compila- 
 tions, one of the most important of which is the work known as 
 *' The Annals of the Fom- Masters," so called from the number of 
 antiquarians engaged in its production. This great body of annals, 
 the most complete of which any northern European country can boast, 
 is the only work extant which furnishes us with the history of the 
 great Celtic tribes or families who, from the most remote times until 
 the dissolution of the last remnant of the clan system, in the seven- 
 teenth century, constituted the old Irish nation — the vestiges of 
 whose ancient greatness are still preserved in the names of almost 
 every hill, river, and townland in our country. 
 
 The family of Mac Firbis of Tireragh did infinite service to Celtic 
 literature by their collections of ancient legal and historical docu- 
 ments, the most important of which are, the Leabliar Buidhe, or 
 " Yellow Book," the " Great Book of Leacau," or Lacken, and the 
 " Book of Mac Fii-bis," copies of which invaluable manuscripts are 
 noAv in the splendid library of the Royal Irish Academy. This race 
 
 * This sentiment pervades all the Irish Jacobite poems. The following 
 stanza is taken from " The Vision of Conor O'Riordan," written about 
 1760, to the beautiful Munster air of " An Spealadoir," or •* The Mower :" 
 
 " A woefiil day, a dismal fate, 
 
 Will overtake your foes, 
 Grey hairs, the curses of deep hate, 
 
 And sickness, and all woes! 
 Death -will bestride them in the night — 
 Their every hope shall meet with hliglit, 
 And God will put to utter flight 
 
 Their long-enjoyed repose!" 
 
 For further illustrations of this feeUng among the native Irish, and 
 which became extinct after the relaxation of the Penal Code, in 1793, the 
 reader is referred to " The Poets and Poetnj of Munster," by J. O'Dahj. 
 12mo. Dublin: 1850. 
 
32 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 of hereditary historians became extinct in 1 670, by the" murder of 
 Daald Mac Firbis, at Dun-Flin, in Sligo. He was the author of the 
 account of Tireragh, printed by the Irish Ai'chseological Society, 
 and of many other unpublished works, which show how deservedly 
 he has been styled the most learned Irish antiquary of his time. 
 One of the most interesting portions of the volume before us is that 
 which treats of the ancient manner of inaugurating the Irish Chief- 
 tains, a subject hitherto involved in the greatest obscurity. The 
 editor has, however, in his appendix, brought together all the his- 
 toric evidence bearing on this curious point,* and fully succeeded in 
 giving us a view of the strange ceremonies performed on the occasion 
 of electing a Chief: who, in times of peace, was to govern the tribe 
 according to the laws of the Brehons^ and under whose satin banner 
 
 * The following poetical version of that part of the above work which 
 relates to the inauguration of the Chief of the O'Neills, at the rath of 
 Tulach Og (the Hill of the Youths), now Tullyhawk, in Tyrone, is from 
 the pen of the late Mr. T. Davis, of Dublin :— 
 
 " Come, lcK)k on the pomp when they ' make an O'Neill;' 
 The muster of dynasts — O'Hagan, O'Sheil, 
 0"Cahan, O'Hanlon, O'Breshn, and all, 
 From gentle Ard Uladh to rude Donegal: 
 Saint Patrick's successor, with bisliops thirteen. 
 And ollavs, and brehons, and minstrels are seen. 
 Round Tulach Og Rath, like bees in the spring, 
 All swarming to honor a 'True Irish King.' 
 
 " Unsandalled he stands on the foot-dinted rock. 
 
 Like a 'pillar-stone' lixed against every shock. 
 
 Roimd, round is tlie Rath, on a far-seeing hill ; 
 
 Like his blemishless honor and vigilant "s^ill. 
 
 The grey-beards are telHng how chiefs by the score 
 
 Have been crowned on the 'Rath of the Kings' heretofore; 
 
 While, crowded, yet ordered, within its green ring, 
 
 Are the dynasts and priests, round the 'True Irish King'.' 
 
 "The chronicler read him the laws of the clan, 
 And pledged him to bide by their blessing and ban ; 
 His sgian and his sword are unbuckled, to show 
 That they only M'ere meant for a foreigner foe; 
 A white willow wand has been put in his hand — 
 A type of pure, upright, and gentle command- 
 While hierarchs are blessing, the shpper they fling, 
 And O'Cahan proclaims him ' A True Irish King.' 
 
 "Thrice looked he to heaven, with thanks and with prayer — 
 Thrice looked to his borders -vvith sentinel stare- 
 To the waves of Loch Neagh, the heights of Straban ; 
 
 And thrice on his allies, and thrice on his clan 
 
 One clash on their bucklers! — one more! — they are still — 
 What means the deep pause on the crest of the hill ? 
 Why gaze they above him? — a war-eagle's wing! 
 'Tis an omen!— HmTah! for the 'True Irish King.' 
 
 "God aid him! God save him!— and smile on his reign— 
 
 The teiTor of England— the ally of Spain. 
 
 May his sword be triumphant o'er Sassanach arts! 
 
 Be his throne ever girt by strong hands and ti'ue hearts! 
 
 May the course of his conquest run on till he see 
 
 The flag of Plantagenet sink in the sea! 
 
 May minstrels for ever his victories sing. 
 
 And saints make the bed of the 'Ti-ue Irish King!'" 
 
THE HISTORlO LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 33 
 
 the clansmen were bound to march to the field of battle, when 
 *' their own danger and the fear for then* possessions" di'ove " the 
 noble tribes of sharp-spears" to take up arms for the " fertile, waim, 
 music-loving old land of Erin."* 
 
 On an incident recorded in this work Mr. S. Ferguson has 
 founded his inimitable ballad of the " Welshmen of Tirawly ;" and 
 we may observe, that in these old Irish historical writers is to be 
 found a vast fund of materials most attractive to the accomplished 
 balladist. For a confirmation of which it is only necessary to refer to 
 Mr. D. F. Mac Carthy's admirable poems, f entitled " The Foray of 
 Con O'Donnel," and " The Voyage of St. Brendan;" and to several 
 exquisite verses on Irish subjects, wi'itten by the late Clarence Man- 
 gan and Edward Walsh. 
 
 This edition of the treatise on Hy-Fiachrach, the largest and 
 most elaborately illustrated of the Society's Irish publications, 
 would, had he not, fortunately for our historic literature, achieved 
 much greater works, :f be sufficient to entitle Dr. John O'Donovan to 
 the character of the most erudite Hiberno-Celtic scholar and literary 
 antiquary yet produced by this country. 
 
 Roderic O'Flaherty, " to whom," says the venerable Charles 
 O'Conor, " this kingdom cannot too much express its obligations," 
 is known to the learned world by his Latin volume, entitled " Ogygia, 
 seu Rerum Hibernicanim Chronologia," pubhshed in 1685, and 
 dedicated to James, Duke of York. Written in an elegant and 
 vigorous classic style, the only work of its time which gives accu- 
 rate information relative to the ancient history of Ireland, com- 
 piled from original manuscripts, and exhibiting an intimate 
 acquaintance with the writers of ancient and modern ages, this book 
 soon acquired a considerable reputation, and is quoted by almost 
 every foreign author who treats of early Irish history. Dr. Smith, 
 in his catalogue of the Cotton Library, commended om' author for 
 his learning and accuracy ; as did also that famous scholar, Edward 
 Lhuyd, in the preface to his " Archaologia." Our ablest antiqua- 
 
 * Fearfeasa O Caijite, Poeta Hibern. Sa3c. xvii. 
 
 t "Poems of D. F. M'Carthy." 12mo. Dublin: 1850. 
 
 X It will be scarcely necessary for us to refer here to Dr. O'Donovan's 
 " Grammar of the Irish Language," 8vo, Dublin, 1849; and his great Na- 
 tional work, " The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Mas- 
 ters." 7 vols. 4to. Dublin : Hodges and Smith, 1851. 
 
34 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 rians since that time have admitted that, in it, he has given " secure 
 anchorage" to Irish history. " He has settled the chronology of the 
 Christian ages in Ireland T\^ith the greatest accuracy ; and even that 
 of Scotland so precisely, that he may justly be esteemed the first 
 chronologer of the affairs of that kingdom." Stripped of his property 
 by the Crorawellians, and only able to recover five hundred acres of 
 his vast estate, after the Restoration, 0' Flaherty applied the greater 
 part of his time to the study of the history of his country. He 
 was, however, fortunate enough to possess the intimate friendship of 
 Mac Firbis and Dr. John Lynch, the two most eminent Irish anti- 
 quarians of the seventeenth century. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the manuscript of the " Ogygia 
 Christiana," or annals of Ireland from the reception of Christianity, 
 and on which O'Flaherty expended much time and labour, should 
 have been lost. It may, we trust, be yet brought to light — a 
 hope which is strengthened by the recollection that it was only in 
 the middle of the last century his " Vindication of the Ogygia" 
 was recovered, and published by 0' Conor. The work under our 
 consideration at present is O'Flaherty's description of H-Iar, or 
 West Counacht,* first published by the Irish Archaeological Society, 
 and supposed to be one of the many similar chorographical treatises 
 compiled late in the seventeenth century, for the illustration of 
 Sir William Potty's Survey of Ireland. The contents of this docu- 
 ment may be described as follows : — " After a general view of the 
 boundaries, extent, and baronies of H-Iar Connacht, the author 
 defines its borders, beginning with Loch Measg (Mask), in the north 
 of the barony of Ross, and proceeding by the eastern limits, towards 
 the south, including Loch Orbsen (Corrib), he turns to the west by 
 the bay of Galway, and thence continues northward, along the shores 
 of the Atlantic, to the Killary harbour, which flows inland, in the 
 direction of Loch Measg, where he began. A general description is 
 then given of the state and appearance of the interior; its moun- 
 tains, mines, woods, soil, rivers, and lakes; the bays and har- 
 bours round the coast; the productions of the coimtry, as fish, 
 
 * A Chorographical Description of West or H-Jar Connacht, loritten A.D. 
 1684, by Roderick O'Flaherty, author of the " Ogygia." Edited, from a 
 3iS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, with Notes and Illustrations, 
 by James Hardiman, M.RJ.A. Dublin : for the I. A. S. 1846. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 35 
 
 fowl, beasts, &c. ; the ruins of ancient chnrclies, chapels, and other 
 religious places ; and finally, the natural disposition of the natives. 
 After which the two great lakes, Measg and Orbsen, with some of 
 the islands in the latter, are particularly described ; the river, town, 
 and bay of Galway; the half barony of Eoss, the barony of Moy- 
 cullen, the three islands of Aran, and the barony of Ballynahinch, 
 which completes the district." 
 
 The principal tribe at an early period in Connacht, was that of 
 the Ui Flaithhheartaigh or sons of Flaherty, said to descend from 
 Duach, the Pagan King of Connacht, in the third century, who 
 was surnamed Teangumha, from the dulcet tones of his voice. 
 " For," says the old Irish chronicler, " the music of the hai-p was 
 not sweeter than the sound of his words." In the ninth cen- 
 tury, and for long after, this clan dwelt to the east of the great lake 
 Orbsen, or Loch Corrib, on the fertile plains of Moy Seola, now 
 forming the barony of Clare, but which anciently included the 
 district surrounding the present town of Galway. Here they con- 
 tinued to dwell, despite the hostile incursions of the surrounding 
 septs, until the thirteenth contury, wdien, having been driven out 
 by the O'Conors and De Burghs, they crossed Loch Orbsen, and 
 took possession of the districts extending from the western 
 banks of that lake to the shores of the Atlantic, and to which 
 the name of H-Iar, or West Connacht, has been in after ages ex- 
 clusively applied. There, in course of time, they acquired greater 
 power than they had ever attained in their ancient inheritance.* 
 Separated from the rest of the kingdom in their peninsulated, 
 and then almost inaccessible district, they interfered but little in the 
 external transactions of the province, and lived on terms of amity 
 and united defence with their neighbours, the ancient clan Maille, or 
 O'MaUeys. 
 
 " Until late in the sixteenth centuiy," says the editor, " the Eng- 
 
 * The clan of O'Halloran was intimately connected with that of O'Fla- 
 herty, and migrated with it to lar-Connacht. From this family Sylvester 
 O'Halloran, the eminent Limerick surgeon, and author of several works on 
 Irish history, is erroneously supposed to have descended. We may add 
 that all the Blakes of Galway are said to descend from Richard Caddie, 
 surnamed Niger or Blacke, Sheriff of Connacht in 1306, and Bailiff of 
 Galway under Richard De Burgo, the ''Red Earl" of Ulster, in 1312. 
 
36 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 lish knew as little of lar-Connacht, or its people, as did their fore- 
 fathers, in the days of Sir John Maundevyle, of the lands of 
 Prestre John, or the men of Inde." Leonard, Lord Gray, towards 
 the end of the reign of Henry VIIL, was the first Deputy of Ireland 
 who ventured to approach these western regions. With him Hugh 
 O'Flaherty entered into a compact to pay an annual sum to the 
 king of one hundred shillings and one hundred pence, and to fur- 
 nish, when required, forty well-armed kenis. In the reign of 
 Elizabeth, Murrogh na d-tuagh, or "of the battle-axes," was 
 appointed by the English as head of the O'Flahertys. His clans- 
 men, however, became alienated from him for joining " the Queen of 
 the strangers," and presuming, under pretence of her authority, which 
 they despised, to claim power over Donall, surnamed Cron, or the 
 swarthy O'Flaherty, the legitimate chief of the tribe, whom they 
 all acknowledged. The "Queen's O'Flaherty" continued to be 
 of considerable importance for some time, and received the honour 
 of knighthood, to which it was contemplated to add the further 
 dignity of a peerage ; but, having lost all influence with his coun- 
 trymen, by his connection with the foreigners, he was allowed to 
 sink into obscurity, without receiving the promised ennoblement. 
 In the wars of 1642, the O'Flahertys joined the rest of their coun- 
 trymen in the royal or national cause, and consequent forfeitures 
 deprived them of their ancient property. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the entire territory of West Connacht was confiscated, and such 
 of the O'Flahertys as survived war and famine were thrown landless 
 on the world. The country was parcelled out, and after the Resto- 
 ration was granted to several patentees. The principal of these 
 were the Earl of Clan-Ricard, Richard Martin of Dangan, John 
 Browne, ancestor of the Marquis of Sligo, the Provost of Trinity 
 College, Dublin, the Archbishop of Tuam, Sir George Bingham, 
 of Castlebar, several descendants of the wealthy burghers of Gal- 
 way, and others. The most extensive of these grantees was Richard 
 Martin, Esq., "a ranke Papiste;" but, so far as the acquisition of 
 property was concerned, one of the most remarkable men of his 
 time. He joined, or rather was obliged to join, the Irish army of 
 James II., in which he was appointed captain of foot ; he afterwards 
 submitted to William IIL, and obtained a free and general pardon. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 37 
 
 *' In conclusion," says the editor, " it may be observed, that although 
 West-Conuacht, which equals in size some of our Irish counties, was 
 wrested from the C'riahertys, and transferred to new masters in the 
 seventeenth century, it remains to this day, with all its natural 
 advantages, one of the least improved and least productive portions 
 of the same extent in Ireland. Hence the poet has sarcastically 
 pointed to 
 
 ** ' The houseless wilds of Connamara.'" 
 
 Mr. Hardiman, whose name has been long and honorably asso- 
 ciated vnth the higher branches of Irish historical literature, has 
 edited the treatise on lar-Connacht in a most ample and attractive 
 manner. He appears for this purpose to have carefully examined 
 all the manuscript authorities; and among his illustrations will be 
 found numerous original documents of the greatest interest — fi'om 
 the Papal Bulls relative to the ancient ecclesiastical affairs of the 
 district, to the curious wiU of " nimble Dick Martin." He has thus 
 succeeded in giving an accm-ate pictm*e of the men and manners in 
 former days of that great province, of whose history and antiqui- 
 ties he is naturally looked on as the guardian, and in which some of 
 the most important events in our annals were transacted. 
 
 In 1 846 appeared the Society's " Miscellany ^''^* the principal con- 
 tents of which are : — An Irish Poem, attributed to St. Columba or 
 Colum-Cille, a valuable specimen of the L'ish language at a remote 
 period. " De Concilio Hiberniae," A.D. 1 297, the earliest known record 
 of an Anglo-Irish Parliament. An elegant and pathetic poem by the 
 author of " Cambrensis Eversus," in which he states his reasons 
 for not retm-ning to his native land. The Obits of the Carmelite 
 Monastery of Kil-Cormick, now Frankfort, in the King's County. 
 The Irish Charters from the '''■Booh of Kells"] relative to the pro- 
 
 * The Miscellany of the Irish Archceological Society, \ol. i. Dublin: 
 for the 1. A. S. 1846. 
 
 t This venerable and splendid volume is now preserved among the manu- 
 scripts of the University of Dublin. " Ireland," says a late English writer, 
 " may justly be proud of the ' Book of Kells.' This copy of the Gospels, 
 traditionally asserted to have belonged to St. Columba, is unquestionably the 
 most elaborately executed manuscript of early art now in existence, far excel- 
 ling, in the gigantic size of the letters in the frontispiece of the Gospel, the 
 excessive minuteness of the ornamental details, the number of its decorations, 
 the fineness of the writing, and the endless variety of initial capital letters, 
 
38 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 perty of the monastery of that town, within the latter part of 
 the twelfth century, and exceedingly interesting to the historian, 
 as proving that the ancient Irish had committed their covenants 
 to writing in their own language, before the Anglo-Norman invasion, 
 and that their chiefs, though not succeeding according to the law of 
 primogeniture, claimed the right of binding their successors to 
 covenants lawfully made by them. According to Dr. O'Donovan, we 
 may clearly infer from some entries in the '■^ Booh of Armagh^'''' that 
 deeds of contract, and even of sale of lands, were committed to 
 writing from the earliest ages of Christianity in Ireland. 
 
 Amongst other documents in the " Miscellany'' we may notice 
 Dr. Thomas Molyneux's Account of his Journey into Connacht in 
 1 709 ; a Letter from Oliver Cromwell to his son, Hany Cromwell, 
 
 with which every page is ornamented, the famous Gospels of Lindisfarne, 
 in the Cottonian Library. But this manuscript is still more valuable 
 on account of the various pictorial representations of different scenes in 
 the life of our Saviour, delineated in a style totally unlike that of every 
 other school, and of which I believe the only other specimens are to be 
 found in the Psalter of St. John's College, Cambridge, and at St. Gall ; the 
 latter, however, being far inferior in execution to those in the ' Book of 
 Kells.' The various readings of this manuscript are as important as its 
 ornamental details, and in it is to be found the celebrated passage asserting 
 the divinity of the Holy Ghost, which has hitherto been considered as 
 unique in the Silver Gospels, at Vercelli. It occurs in St. John iii. 5, 6, 
 (fo. 297, V.) These words were struck out by the Arians, and Father 
 Simon asserted that there was no Latin manuscript in existence in which 
 they were to be found." — Palcpographia Sacra Pictoria, hy I. O. Westwood, 
 F.L.S. London, 1845. This learned writer also tells us, that " at a 
 period, when the fine arts may be said to have been almost extinct in Italy 
 and other parts of the Continent — namely, from the fifth to the end of the 
 eighth century — a style of art had been established and cultivated in Ireland, 
 absolutely distinct from that of all other parts of the civilized world. There 
 is abundant evidence to prove that in the sixth and seventh centuries the 
 art of ornamenting manuscripts of the Sacred Scriptures, and especially 
 of the Gospels, had attained a perfection in Ireland almost marvellous, and 
 which in after ages was adopted and imitated by the Continental schools 
 visited by the Irish missionaries. Several of the finest facsimiles given by 
 Astle as Anglo-Saxon, are from Irish manuscripts; and thus Sylvestre, who 
 has copied them, has fallen into the same error ; lohilst Wanley, Casley, and 
 others, appear never to have had a suspicion of the existence of an ancient 
 school of art in Ireland." 
 
 In the year 1849, Queen Victoria and her Royal Consort, inscribed 
 their autographs in the " Book of Kells." This venerable volume, we may 
 add, was in existence centuries before the first of Her Majesty's ancestors 
 ascended the English throne ; and is credibly believed to have been the 
 companion of Columba or Colum-Cille, the Irish Saint who first spread the 
 light of the Gospel through the Pagan districts of Scotland. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 39 
 
 Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, A. D. 1656; and the Annals 
 of Ireland from 1443 to 1468, translated into English by Duald 
 Mac Firbis, from an Irish original, now nnknown. One of the 
 most interesting papers in the volume is a genealogical sketch 
 of a branch of the old family of Lynch, who first settled in Gal- 
 way* towards the close of the thirteenth century; and becoming 
 closely identified with the interests of the town, appear from that 
 period as the most important of its burgesses. Owing to their influ- 
 ence Henry VII. granted letters patent, empowering the citizens to 
 elect a mayor, "to be their head and chieftain," which office was 
 almost always filled by the Lynchs. In the fifteenth century we 
 are told, that James Lynch Fitz- Stephen " gott his own son hanged 
 out of one of the windows of his house for having committed 
 murther, and broken trust towards a stranger, for to be an example 
 of sincere fidelity to all posterity." On this incident the Rev. 
 Edward Groves has founded his admu-able melodi*ama of the 
 "Warden of Galway." In 1529, it was ordained "that all ships, 
 with a Lynchf in any of them, that entered into the haven of 
 Galway, should shoot their great cannons at their passing by the 
 black rock;" and "this custom," says the old wiiter, "is observed 
 to this very day." They continued to hold a high position in their 
 town, and to be always the largest and most munificent contri- 
 butors to its chm*ches and schools, till the suiTender of Galway to 
 the Cromwellians in 1652, stripped the old inhabitants of their 
 properties, and obliged them ' to quit the very town they founded 
 themselves, having surrounded it with great walls, and embellished 
 it with churches and stately houses upon their own cost and charges.' " 
 After this sad event, many of the Lynchs repaired to the Conti- 
 
 * "Galway men were," according to Mr. Hardiman, "formerly noted 
 for their hospitality, which they carried to such excess that the civic autho- 
 rity was often obliged to interfere, in order to check or regulate it. Thus 
 in A.D. 1518, it was enacted, ' that no man of this town shall oste or re- 
 ceive into their houses at Christmas, Easter, nor no feaste elles, any of the 
 Burkes, M'Williams, the Kellies, nor no cepte elles, without license of the 
 Mayor and Councill, on payn to forfeit £5 : that neither O ne Mac shall 
 strutte ne swaggere thro' the streets of Gallway.' — Orig. Corp. Book." 
 
 f " The Fovntaine of Ancient Fiction. Done out of Italian into Eng- 
 lish, by Richard Linche, Gent." 4to., 1599. The author of this bibliogra- 
 phical rarity was probably related to John Lynch, who was appointed Bishop 
 of Elphin in 1584. 
 
40 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 nent, where they were well received, and soon distinguished them- 
 selves. Shortly after this period we find Richard Lynch, Professor 
 of Divinity in the University of Salamanca, Stephen Lynch, Guar- 
 dian of the L'ish Franciscan Convent at Rome, Dominick Lynch, 
 Regent of the College of St. Thomas of Aquin, in the city of Se- 
 ville, Nicholas Lynch, " well known throughout Spain, France, and 
 in Rome, for his rare qualities and talents, Provincial of his order 
 in Ireland, and Vicar-general Apostolick of Scotland." Another 
 of the same family served in Italy under Philip IV. " in quality of 
 Major-general, where he gained such credit and fame that he got 
 the title of Generalissimo." Several of the Lynchs were officers in 
 the Irish Brigades in the service of France, and Chevaliers of the 
 " Royal and Military Order of St. Louis :" one of the most distin- 
 guished of those was Le Sieur Dominique Lynch, Lieutenant-colonel of 
 the famous regiment of Lally. He accompanied the Stuarts on their 
 expeditions to England and Scotland, and fell in 1747, at the bloody 
 battle of Lafeldt. John Lynch, "maire honoraire" of Bordeaux, 
 and Peer of France, was the first who, in 1814, declared for the 
 restoration of the Bourbons. Casting off his tri- color scarf and the 
 cross of the Legion of Honor, he assumed the white cockade, and 
 caused the gates of the old capital of the Plantagenet sovereigns of 
 France to be opened to the Allies. Just twenty years and one month 
 from the fearful day on which another Irish exile, the Abbe Edge- 
 worth, undaunted by the threats of a sanguinary mob, had stood on 
 the scaffold by the side of Louis XVI. ; and, mth his inspked elo- 
 quence, soothed the last moments of the best and most blameless of 
 the successors of St. Louis. 
 
 The name of Lynch has been identified with Irish historical lite- 
 rature, by the labours of the author of " Cambrensis Eversus," and 
 by the works of the late William Lynch, who possessed an unri- 
 valled knowledge of the Anglo-Norman manuscript records of his 
 country. 
 
 The object of the '-^Miscellany'''' of the Society, is, we are in- 
 formed, "to preserve such smaller documents illustrative of the 
 history and antiquities of Ireland, as from their size are unfitted for 
 separate pubUcation, and all who are interested in historical pursuits 
 are invited to contribute to the future volumes of this work." We 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 4 1 
 
 hope to see these -views fully appreciated, and trust that persons 
 possessing old documents of any importance, will see the propriety 
 of communicating them to the Irish Archaeological Society. 
 
 The Irish, and most complete known version of the " History of 
 the Britons," * attributed to the apocryphal Nennius, the original of 
 which is supposed to have been written early in the ninth century, 
 is a work of great importance in elucidating the history of the 
 early inhabitants of the British isles. The several original docu- 
 ments appended, on the early Scotic monarchs, and on the history 
 of the Cruithnians, or Picts, render the Society's edition extremely 
 valuable in illustrating the bardic sources of Irish and British his- 
 tory ; with which abstruse inquiries the editors have, by their illus- 
 trations, evidenced theii' familiarity. The Hon. Algernon Herbert 
 has displayed much mediaeval learning and ingenious conjecture in 
 the supplemental essays on the various early migrations to Ireland 
 and Britain. There is, however, no foimdation for his scepticism 
 relative to the early foreign expeditions of Dathi, the last pagan 
 monarch of Ireland, as Mr. O'Callaghan, in his notes to the " De- 
 struction of Cyprus,'''' has since shown that the old Irish accounts 
 are confirmed by the Piedmontese traditions, and by documents 
 preserved among the archives of the illustrious house of De Sales. 
 This statement has been further authenticated by ^Ir. Curry*s recent 
 discovery of a very ancient Celtic manuscript, which gives a detailed 
 account of the various military excursions of " the son of Fiachra." 
 
 That an Irish scholar should, in the eleventh century, have trans- 
 lated the Latin work of Nennius, will not appear strange, when we 
 recollect that there is extant an Irish version, as old as the eighth 
 century, of a history of the wars of Alexander the Great, trans- 
 lated from a classic original, now unknown. We also possess Irish 
 translations of the Italian writings of Marco Polo,"]" the early Vene- 
 
 * Leabhar Breathnach Annso Sis. The Irish Version of the Historia 
 Britonum of Nennius. Edited, ivith a Translation and Notes, by James 
 Henthorn Todd, D.D., M.R.LA., Felloio of Trinity College, Dublin, ^c. 
 The Introduction and Additional Notes, by the Hon. Algernon Herbert. 
 Dublin : printed for the Irish Archaeological Society. 1848, 
 
 f The translation of Polo's works is one of the most classical specimens of 
 the old Irish language. Among the translations of foreign romances, made 
 not later than the first half of the fifteenth century, is " Cathreim Shearluis 
 Mhoir," being an Irish version of the famous " Historia Caroli Magni et 
 
42 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 tian traveller, and of many of the most celebrated foreign romances 
 of chivalry ; made at a period when Ireland was, according to igno- 
 rant writers, wrapped in the darkest barbarism. 
 
 The publication of the Irish Nennius demonstrates a fact, hitherto 
 overlooked, that the ancient Irish manuscripts contain much import- 
 
 Rolandi," ascribed to Turpin, Archbishop of Rheiras, and styled ironically 
 by Boiardo, "la vera historia di Turpin." From it Pulci evidently bor- 
 rowed the conclusion of his "Morgante Maggiore," although Crescimbeni 
 will not admit the fact. Ariosto quotes " Turpino" for some of the wild- 
 est tales introduced in the " Orlando Furioso," many of which are not to 
 be found in the Continental originals. A collation of the version in the 
 " Book of Lismore" might show that it, having been made from an ancient 
 copy, contains the fictions which " Messer Lodovico" is supposed to have 
 invented. Ariosto, however, little knew that " Tultima Irlanda" was 
 acquainted with the mighty deeds of 
 
 " Los doce Pares de Francia 
 Que a una mesa comen pan," 
 
 when he introduced " Oberto," King of Ireland, and the ^' Earl of Kil- 
 dare" into his poem, which has immortalized 
 
 " Le donne, i cavalier, Tanne, gli amori, 
 Le cortesie, I'audaci imprese— 
 Che furo al tempo che passaro i Mori 
 D'Africa il mare." 
 
 We have also an Irish version of the celebrated romance of " Guy de War- 
 wick, Chevalier d'Angletere et de la belle fille Felix (Felias) samie." This 
 occupies forty-eight pages of a folio MS. of the 15th century, in the 
 library of the University of Dublin, and is probably identical with the very 
 old metrical history on the same subject, of which a fragment is preserved 
 among the Harleian MSS. The same Irish compilation contains a portion 
 of the life and adventures of Sir Guy (Bevys) of Hampton, and his fair 
 bride, the daughter of the King of Scotland ; her elopement with the young 
 Emperor of Austria, and subsequent adventures; this, having been muti- 
 lated, extends only to sixteen folio pages. 
 
 There is a very ancient and elegant Irish version, in the "Book of Lis- 
 more," of the " History of the Lombards," by Paulus of Friuli, or Waran- 
 fridus ; much of which he derived from the work, now lost, of Secundinus 
 Tridentinus. This version was probably the result of the communication 
 of the Irish with Lombardy ; which commenced by the foundation of the 
 monastery at Bobbio by St. Columbanus, in the seventh century, that 
 institution, according to Tiraboschi, had, during the middle ages, one of 
 the largest and most valuable libraries in Europe. It is curious to find a 
 body of Irish Jacobite exiles achieving one of the most brilliant and 
 heroic actions in the annals of war, in defence of the town of Cremona, in 
 Lombardy, upwards of 1000 years after the foundation of the great Lombard 
 monastery by their countryman Columbanus. 
 
 The Psalter of Colum-Cilie, written in the sixth century ; the Four Gos- 
 pels of Dimma, and the " Book of Armagh," are national muniments, of 
 which, says a late English writer, " all Irishmen may be justly proud — nay, 
 exultingly produce, as evidences of the civilization and literary acquire- 
 ments of their country, at an age when other nations of Europe, if 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 43 
 
 ant matter relative to the early and traditional history of England 
 and Scotland. 
 
 The Latin annals of Ireland, written by Friar Jolin Clyn, of the 
 Franciscan Convent of Kilkenny, relate principally to the affairs of 
 the country, from the descent of Edward Bruce, in 1315, to the 
 
 not in utter ignorance and barbarism, were in their primers — their very 
 horn-books." 
 
 Of the *'Book of Armagh," now deposited by its owner in the Museum 
 of the Royal Irish Academy, and supposed by St. Bernard to have 
 belonged to St. Patrick, but assigned to the seventh century by Dr. Petrie, 
 the same English writer tells us, that it "contains evidence of learning 
 beyond even the most sanguine hopes and expectations of the most 
 patriotic Irishman. It exhibits an acquaintance with the Greek, as well as 
 the Latin tongue; and more, in it will be found evidence to convince the 
 most sceptical, that Ireland, in the seventh century, was a cultivated and 
 civilized country, and had been so for centuries ; that Christianity had long 
 before enlightened her people, and that not in isolated or individual cases, 
 where its professors shrunk from its avowal — not here and there in a monas- 
 tery on the coast, or in fortified places, surrounded by Paganism and per- 
 secution, like an oasis in the desert ; no, Ireland was then, and long had been, 
 a Christian nation, governed by wholesome laws, which protected the lives 
 and properties of its inhabitants, and respected and shielded the stranger." 
 
 In the Bodleian Library is an Irish commentary on the Pandect or 
 *' Bibliotheca" of St. Jerome, made in the eighth century by the Abbot 
 O'Huathghaile, surnamed, from his extensive erudition, Dubhlitir, or the 
 *' black-lettered." The library of Carlsruhe possesses an Irish copy of Pris- 
 cian's Grammar, written in the ninth century, and of which a fac-siraile may 
 be seen in the " Palaeographie" of Silvestre and Champollion. It is much 
 to be regretted that the editors of this gorgeous publication should have 
 fallen into the serious errors, relative to ancient Irish MSS., noticed at 
 page 38. According to the learned Ludewig, the oldest manuscript in 
 Germany is a copy of the Four Gospels, in the autograph of St. Kilian, 
 the Irish Apostle of Franconia, who was martyred in 678. This manuscript, 
 which Eckhart tells us is as old as the famous " Pandectes de Florence," is 
 said to have been used by the Irish Saint, and his companions, when the sa- 
 cred mysteries were celebrated for the first time in Franconia. It is still 
 annually exposed in the Cathedral of Wirtzburg, for the veneration of the 
 faithful. Having been found in St. Kilian's tomb, A.D. 743, its last leaves 
 are stained with the blood of the holy man, who was chaunting the midnight 
 service from it, when he was murdered by the hireling of the impious 
 Geilana. This Irish Saint is now venerated as the Patron of Franconia. 
 
 In the *' Book of Leinster," a MS. of the twelfth century, is preserved a 
 very ancient account of the " Destruction of Troy." This may be a version 
 of the Continental accounts of the '* Siege of Troy," founded on the apo- 
 cryphal authority of Dares Phrygius, and Dictys Cretensis, but it cannot 
 certainly have any connection with the celebrated " Historia de Bello Tro- 
 jano," compiled by Guido de Colonna, of Messina. Warton's assertion, 
 that the Greek language was unknown in Europe from the fourth to the 
 fourteenth century, is disproved, as far as Ireland is concerned, by the con- 
 tents of the '♦ Book of Armagh." " Cormacs Glossary," written in the ninth 
 century, contains evidence of its Royal compiler's knowledge of the Greek 
 and Hebrew tongues. We know that Columbanus, Joannes Scotus Eri- 
 
 E 
 
44 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 year 1349, when the author* is supposed to have fallen a victim to 
 that di-eadful pestilence, known as the " Black Death,"t which devas- 
 tated Europe in the fourteenth century, and committed fearful ra- 
 vages in Kilkenny, of which Clyn gives a vivid picture. " During 
 the times contained in these annals," says the accomplished editor, 
 
 gena, and Cummian, acquired a perfect knowledge of the Greek language 
 in the Irish schools. A curious branch of inquiry is connected with the 
 communication between Greece and Ireland in the middle ages : for Ussher 
 tells us, that when the Irish Firghal, or Virgilius, the first discoverer of the 
 Antipodes, left Ireland, he was accompanied by a Grecian Bishop ; and we 
 also hear of a Greek Church at Trim, in the County of Meath. 
 
 The " Leahhar Breac" or " Speckled Book," a MS. of remote antiquity, 
 contains a romantic account of " Toruidheact na Croiche Naoimhe," or the 
 *' Search for the Holy Cross ;" probably of a similar nature to the celebrated 
 ♦' Queste du Saint Greal." 
 
 The old Irish MSS. contain similar translations from foreign and clas- 
 sical authors, in addition to the few we have mentioned, the examination of 
 which, by competent scholars, would throw much light on the state of Euro- 
 pean learning in the dark ages. It must, however, be recollected that, as 
 noticed at page 22, the Irish had, in addition to the foreign romances, 
 a school of fiction peculiar to themselves. 
 
 * The Annals of Ireland. By Friar John Clyn, of the Convent of Friars 
 Minors, Kilkenny ; and Thady Dowling, Chancellor of Leighlin. Together 
 tvith the Annals of Boss. Edited, from Manuscripts in the Library of Tri- 
 nity College, Dublin, with Introductory Bemarks, by the Very Bev. Bichard 
 Butler, A.B., M.B.I. A., Dean of Clonmacnois. Dublin : printed for the 
 Irish Archaeological Society. 1849. 
 
 f The " Black Death," above-mentioned, also carried oflF the cele- 
 brated " Laura" of Petrarca: it has been admirably described by I. F. C. 
 Hecker, Professor at Frederick William's University at Berlin, in his work 
 et\tit\ed*'SchwarzeTod." We are also indebted to him for his other two 
 treatises on the '' Tanzwuth," or " Dancing Mania," and the '^Englische 
 Schweiss," or " Sweating Sickness:" the most important contributions ever 
 made to historical pathology. With the exception of Dr. Wilde's valuable 
 Nosological Report, appended to the Census of Ireland for the year 1841, and 
 the same author's interesting " Memoirs of eminent Irish physicians," and 
 " Essays on Irish medical superstitions," no attempt has hitherto been made 
 to compile a history of medicine in Ireland. Although considerable ma- 
 terials exist for such a work, it appears, as Hecker observed on a similar sub- 
 ject, in his " Address to the Physicians of Germany," " an unexplored de- 
 partment which many suppose to be a barren desert, because no one to whose 
 voice they are wont to listen, gives any information respecting it." Without 
 ascending to the semi-fabulous ages of our history, in which many notices 
 of physicians are to be found, we may observe that in the curious account 
 of Tara written, according to Dr. Petrie, about the middle of the sixth 
 century, \ve find special mention of physicians, who are there designated 
 *' a sage company." The Brehon laws contain several enactments relative 
 to the same class ; and Mac Firbis tells us, that the Irish historians have 
 left written accounts of their Leagha or physicians of former times. Among 
 the numerous ancient medical MSS. written in the Irish language, which 
 have come down to us, the following deserve mention: " The Lily of Irish 
 Medicine," compiled by the O'Hickeys, physicians to the O'Briens of 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 45 
 
 " the English Government had not power to control the excesses of 
 its subjects, or to repress the attacks of its opponents. The great 
 Anglo-Irish families had become septs. In Cljn's Latin, the St. 
 Aubins, now corrupted into Tobyns, and the Archdeacons, now 
 transformed into the patronymic Mac Odos, or Codys, are ' naciones 
 
 Thomond. This -work was completed in 1302, and it may be interesting to 
 add, that a copy of it was purchased in 1501 for twenty cows by the Earl of 
 Desmond. This copy is now in the British Museum, and a MS. note 
 states, that the compiler had spent twenty years in studying at Montpellier, 
 and the other chief Schools of Medicine. In the Academy's collection is an 
 Irish medical treatise written in 1352, in which the Arabian physicians and 
 the works of Galen and Hippocrates are frequently quoted, and passages 
 from them translated. This fact, given on the unquestionable authority of 
 Mr. Curry, is of importance, as it demonstrates that the writings ot these 
 two authors were well known in Ireland in the fourteenth century. Ac- 
 cording to Sprengel, Nicolas Leonicenus, Professor at Ferrara about 
 1470, was the first translator of Galen from the Greek, and we know that the 
 first complete printed edition was that of Aldus in 1525. All the works of 
 Hippocrates were not published till 1526, although Thomas Linacre, 
 founder of the English College of Physicians, and the friend of More and 
 of Erasmus, had published at Cambridge in 1521, Galen's treatise " De 
 Temperamentis." The earliest English edition of the Aphorisms of Hippo- 
 crates was that of Lloyd, 16mo. 1585; and Hallam represents the middle 
 of the sixteenth century as the period of the restoration of the Hippocratic 
 system of practice. In 1466, Donogh O'Bolgaidh completed the compila- 
 tion of a large medical MS. of nearly 500 pages: this book, now in the 
 possession of Mr. Mac Adam of Belfast, contains treatises on the medicinal 
 virtues of herbs and minerals, and on the various diseases of the human 
 frame. In the Academy's Collection, is a series of Irish tracts consisting of 
 original essays on medicine, and compilations from^ and dissertations on, 
 the ancient medical writers of Europe and the East. This series, ascribed to 
 the early part of the fifteenth century, is, according to Dr. Wilde, " one of 
 the most remarkable collections of symptomatology of its age, in any 
 language : and its observations are particularly copious on short fevers, 
 which there can be little doubt existed in this country from a very early 
 date. It likewise treats of the diseases of females, and concludes with several 
 valuable and original medical aphorisms." *' The Book of the Island of 
 O'Brazil," compiled by the O'Lees, hereditary physicians to the O'Fla- 
 hertys of West Connacht, and now in the Academy's Library, speaks of 
 putrid fevers, abscesses, and pustules, wounds, hydrophobia, poisons, affec- 
 tions of the brain and spinal marrow, and diseases of the eye, stomach, &c., 
 and is in fact a complete system of medicine. We shall close our present 
 notice of the ancient Irish medical manuscripts, with mentioning the " Book 
 of the O'Sheils," hereditary physicians to the Mac Coghlans of Delvin, and 
 the Mac Mahons of Oriel. It is a system of medicine somewhat similar to, 
 but far more extensive than, the " Book of O'Brazil," and it afforded many 
 of the Irish names used in the valuable Nosological Report before referred to. 
 
 A Latin writer, of the sixteenth century, speaks of the very ancient and 
 smoky-looking parchments which the Irish physicians were in the habit of 
 consulting, and the author of a work published in Portugal in the early part 
 of the seventeenth century, mentions the skill of the " Medici Hibernici." 
 
 That the scientific knowledge of the ancient Irish was not confined to 
 
46 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 el cognomina;^ and he speaks of the Hoddinets and Cantetous, 
 * cum multis de sanguine eorum.^ If the Irish chiefs acknowledged 
 no common authority, and felt no common interest, the same division 
 prevailed among the lords of English descent. Englishman was 
 now opposed to Englishman, and sought to revenge himself by the 
 help of the Irish ; nor did the English refuse their aid to the Irish, 
 when plundering their own countrymen. When Brien O'Brien ra- 
 vaged Ossory, and slew the loyal English of Aghaboe and Aghma- 
 cart, he had the help of the English of Ely. Such was the political 
 and social state of Ii*eland, during the earlier part of the fourteenth 
 century, as represented in these annals, and such, with little alter- 
 ation, it continued to be for several generations. Whatever were 
 the faults of the several parties, in this long and bitter struggle — 
 and no doubt all parties had great and grievous faults, — they were 
 the faults rather of the times than of the men. At all events, it 
 little becomes any Irishman of the present day to reproach their 
 memories. He can scarcely do so without reproaching the memoiy 
 of his own ancestors. There are few living Irishmen, whatever be 
 their names, whether Celtic or Norman, in whose veins does not run 
 the mingled blood of Norman and of Celt, or rather of Irishmen and 
 Englishmen. Nor can the descendants of those good knights who 
 stood with Edward III. in the trenches of Calais, or of those hardy 
 squires who overthrew the victors at Bannockbum, be unwilling to 
 claim kindred with the descendants of the Irish chiefs, whose names 
 were in the songs of the poet and the legends of the saint, when the 
 names of Normandy and of Norman were unknown." 
 
 The '^Annales Breves Hihernice,'''' by Thady Dowhng, Chancellor 
 of Leighlin, extend fi'om the semi-fabulous times to the year 1600. 
 " It is evident," says our authority, "that the compiler of these An- 
 
 medicine is evident from the number of translations of foreign authors pre- 
 served in the MS. collections. Among those, we may notice an Irish trea- 
 tise on Geography, written about A.D. 800, at Cloyne, now in the possession 
 of the University of Dublin, an Irish poem on astronomy, written in the 
 early part of the thirteenth century, now ia the library of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge ; and a system of astronomy in the Irish language, of the four- 
 teenth century, beautifully written and accompanied by diagrams, and now 
 in our Academy's Collection. Mr. I. O. Halliwell, the eminent English 
 literary antiquary, tells us, that the Arabic numerals, usually, though erro- 
 neously, ascribed to Roger Bacon, were well known and understood in Ire- 
 land at the commencement of the fourteenth century. 
 
TIIE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 47 
 
 nals had access to no contemptible library of printed books. Giraldus 
 Cambreusis, Powel's Caradoc of Llancarvan, and probably that 
 learned Welshman's other works on British history, Lanquet's Chro- 
 nicle, continued by Bishop Cooper, Sir J. Eliot, Stowe, and Holin- 
 shed, form a library for which many a modern clerical student of 
 Irish history would envy Queen Elizabeth's Chancellor of Leighhn, 
 Yet, in Dowling's days the old cathedral town of St. Lazerian, 
 looking from its sheltered glen and bright stream, across the rich 
 plain of the Barrow, to the blue and undulating outline of Mount 
 Leinster, beautiful as it ever must have been to the eye of the 
 painter, was a place ill-fitted for quiet study and learned research. 
 The neighboming monastery of the Carmelites, at the bridge, had 
 been converted into a royal garrison, and the goodly Barrow, as it 
 flowed under its walls, reflected, not cowls and friars' frocks, but 
 matchlocks and iron skull-caps. In this transmuted monastery, in 
 the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., Sir Edward Bellingham, 
 Lord Deputy, kept a stall of twenty or thu'ty horse ; and it was from 
 this house that he rode into Munster, to the house of the Earl of Des- 
 mond, when being uulookcd for and unthought of, he found the earl 
 sitting at his Christmas fire, and took him and earned him away 
 with him to Dublin. Some years later, and in the time of Dowling, 
 Leighlin was the residence of one of these bold and accomplished 
 soldiers, at once worldly and romantic, who gave strength and glory 
 to the throne of Queen EHzabeth. Here came Sir Peter Carew, 
 who, having been in his youth, as recorded by his faithful steward, 
 at Constantinople in the Turk's court, at Vienna in the Emperor's 
 palace, at Venice, and in the French king's court, and in the houses 
 of most of all Christian princes, in every of which places he left 
 some token of his value, settled down at Leighlin, in his ripe man- 
 hood, determined to preserve, by policy and the strong hand, the 
 great Irish inheritance which he claimed by descent, and had 
 obtained by law. Here he kept continually, and here he needed to 
 keep, in his own private family, 100 persons, and had always in 
 readiness 100 horsemen, well appointed, besides footmen, and 100 
 kerns ; here his cellar door was never shut, and his buttery always 
 open to all comers of any credit. Those days, however, of military 
 strength ^ud of proud hospitality, worthy of Branksome Hall, sooa 
 
48 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 passed away; and when the worthy knight, old Sh* Peter, died at 
 Ross, his cousin and heir, young Sir Peter, was unable to defend his 
 inheritance." The annalist gives many details of the vigorous efforts 
 made by the natives to expel the intrusive English knight, whose 
 title-deeds are proved, by modern researches, to have been shameless 
 forgeries ; and this contest, which, Dowling tells us, was maintained 
 by the Irish with the pertinacity of demons, is known as " the wars 
 of Sir Peter Carew." Although the entries in these annals are con- 
 cise, they contain many anecdotes and curious traits of the contem- 
 poraries of the author, who survived till 1628. 
 
 To render the Society's collection of Latin annals as complete as 
 possible, the " Annals of Ireland, from the Book of Ross," are given 
 in the Appendix, and extend from 1265 to 1480. 
 
 This valuable volume of annals well merits the title of " editio 
 variorum." In addition to the notes and admirable introductions 
 of the editor, Dr. John O'Donovan has illustrated the Celtic and 
 topographical portions : the Hon. A. Herbert has supplied com- 
 mentaries on the passages connected with early British histoiy and 
 mediseval Continental learning; while the Rev. James Graves and 
 his erudite collahorateur, J. G. Prim, Esq., have contributed a vast 
 amount of interesting local and historical matter relative to Kilkenny, 
 so often referred to by these annalists. That ancient town owes much 
 to those learned gentlemen for their successful efforts to preserve its 
 ancient historical remains, and to awake a taste for learning and 
 research among the more enlightened portion of its citizens. 
 
 We would wish to see the Committee of the Society henceforth 
 fully cany out the plan they have already partially adopted, of com- 
 mitting to various editors the task of annotating such portions of the 
 Society's pubhcations as their previous studies had rendered them 
 most conversant with. 
 
 The author of the ^'Ifacarice Excidium,^''* a lineal descendant of 
 the powerful and wealthy clan from whom, in ancient times, a great 
 
 * Macarice Excidimn, or the Destruction of Cyprus ; being a Secret History 
 of the War of the Revolution in Ireland, by Colonel Charles O' Kelly, of 
 Skryne, or Aughrane, now Castle Kelly, County Galway. Editedy from four 
 English Copies and a Latin Manuscript in the Royal Irish Academy, with 
 Notes, Illustrations, and a Memoir of the Author and his Descendants, by 
 John Cornelius O'Callaghan. Dublin ; for the LA. S. 1850. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 49 
 
 part of Connacht took the name of " O'Kelly's conntiy," was bom 
 at the Castle of Screen, or Aughrane, in 1621. After studying, 
 with reputation, at the College of St. Omer, he returned to Ireland 
 in 1642, to assist his countrymen in their struggle against the Puri- 
 tans. In this contest, Colonel Charles O'Kelly displayed a gallantry 
 worthy of his ancestry; and when the Confederates, by their own 
 religious dissensions,* were obliged to succumb, he, with two thou- 
 sand Irish soldiers, embarked for the Continent, where, placing 
 themselves at the disposal of Chai'les II. and his brother, the Duke 
 of York, they rendered the royal fugitives of considerable import- 
 ance. Independently of which the Ii-ish military contributed largely 
 
 * It cannot be doubted, that but for the element of religious discord, in- 
 troduced by the Pope's Legate, the Irish Confederates would have effec- 
 tually baffled all the efforts of Cromwell, and have thus saved Ireland from 
 the fearful consequences which were entailed by his success. Nearly all the 
 Catholic nobility and men of property and reputation in the country were 
 totally opposed to the proceedings of Rinuccini and his irrational adherents. 
 In endeavouring^to divert the latter from their ruinous course, Colonel Walter 
 Bagnal, a young man who, says the contemporary writer, " to the nobleness 
 of his birth and the plentifulness of his fortune, had added a great stock of 
 valour, and many excellent parts/' addressed the Ultramontane clergy in the 
 following pathetic terms : — 
 
 •' My Lords, there was a time, when our ancestors, at the peril of their 
 fortunes, and with the danger of their persons, sheltered some of you and 
 your predecessors from the severity of the laws. They were no niggardly 
 sharers with you in your wants ; and it cannot be said that the splendour of 
 your present condition hath added anything to the sincere and filial reve- 
 rence which was then paid you. We their posterity, have with our blood 
 and the expence of our substance, asserted this advantage you have over 
 them, and redeemed the exercise of your function from the penalties of the 
 law, and your persons from the persecution to which they were subject. 
 We are upon the brink of a formidable precipice, reach forth your hand to 
 pull us back ; your zeal for the house of God will be thought no way the 
 less fervent, that you preserve the Irish nation; and your judgments will not 
 suffer from the attempt, when you give over upon better information. 
 Rescue us, we beseech you, from those imminent miseries that environ us 
 visibly ; grant somewhat to the memory of our forefathers, and to the 
 affection we bear you ourselves, let this request, find favour with you, made 
 to prevent the violation of publick faith, and to keep the devouring sword 
 from the throats of our wives and our children." 
 
 All appeals were, however, in vain ; the foreign-influenced clergy persisted 
 in their headlong course. In a short time after the delivery of this speech, 
 the whole of Ireland was in the possession of the regicides ; and Colonel 
 Bagnal, having fallen into their hands, was tried by court-martial, and shot. 
 
 It must still be recollected, that there was an illustrious minority 
 of the most learned and high-born of the clergy, who resisted and disap- 
 proved of the proceedings of the Ultramontanists. Among these courageous 
 men, will be found names which will be for ever dear to the lovers of our 
 
50 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 from their pay to the support of the king and his family, for which 
 many of them were afterwards rewarded by having their patrimonies 
 and the estates of their ancestors confirmed to the former supporters 
 of the Cromwellian government. On the " Restoration," Colonel 
 O'Kelly returned to Ireland, where he resided until the commence- 
 ment of the wars of James II., when this well-tried veteran, then in 
 his sixty-eighth year, was again called on to fill posts of honor and 
 importance, in all of which he displayed his loyalty and inalienable 
 attachment to the royal or national cause. 
 
 After the Treaty of Limerick, the completion of which, foreseeing 
 
 country's literature, and a few whom it is but just to mention here — the vene- 
 rable David Roth, Bishop of Ossory, author of the " Analecta,'' whom even 
 his furious opponent, Ryves, admitted to be "nee indoctus, nee infacundus," 
 and who is styled, in the secret instruction to the Legate from Rome, ** per- 
 sonaggio egregio e prudente." Francis Kirwan, Bishop of Kilalla, whose life 
 was written and published as a model for the Irish clergy. Dr. John Lynch, 
 author of " Cambrensis Eversus," one of the most exalted characters of 
 his time. The profoundly learned Thomas Dease, Bishop of Meath and Doc- 
 tor of the Sorbonne. Dr. Callaghan, the elegant author of the "Vindiciae 
 Catholicorum Hibernise," and a Doctor of the Faculty of Paris. This 
 learned man, allied by blood to the nobles of the land, a relative of the brave 
 Colonel Callaghan O'Callaghan, one of the most distinguished officers in 
 the Confederate army, and of whose name there were upwards of 300 
 gentlemen in arms at the time, for the royal cause, was presented to the 
 Bishopric of Cork by the Supreme Council. The Pope's Legate effectually 
 opposed his promotion, because the Doctor was intimate with the Marquis 
 of Ormonde, the King's Lord Lieutenant, although, in his private letters to 
 Cardinal Panfilio, he admitted, that Dr. Callaghan was " uomo veraraente di 
 retti costumi." This "honest" Doctor was highly esteemed by Queen Hen- 
 rietta Maria, and the royal family. Dr. Seathruin or Geoffrey Keating, 
 author of the celebrated " Forus Feasa air Erinn," or Chronicles of Ireland, 
 and of the well-known devout treatise, ^' Eochar sgiaith an Aifrionn," or the 
 " Key to the Shield of the Mass," has left several Irish writings, condemn- 
 ing the proceedings of the foreign-influenced clergy. Dr. Redmond 
 Caron, a divine in high estimation abroad, and whose " Remonstrantia 
 Hibernorum contra Ultramontanas Censuras" has been reprinted in the 
 *' Vindiciae Ecclesias Gallicanae." 
 
 The whole Order of the Jesuits, we are told, were of this rational mi- 
 nority, and "were, every one, for the peace of the nation, and return of 
 the people to their due obedience to His Majesty." They appear to have 
 attached no serious importance to the excommunication fulminated against 
 them by the foreign ecclesiastic, who, according to their late reverend his- 
 torian, borrowed, and never repaid, the greater part of the funds of their 
 Order, by which, adds our authority, the brotherhood was seriously injured. 
 
 " Les censures du Nonce (Rinuccini)" says a French writer, in 1651, 
 *' ayant arme les Catholiques contre les Catholiques, et ayant par cette 
 guerre intestine, divise et ruine leur forces, qui etant unies eussent ete in- 
 vincibles, ont donne beau lieu au Republicains Anglois, egalement ennemis 
 de la Royaute et de notre religion (Catholique), de se rendre maitres de 
 cette isle unfortunee." 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 5 1 
 
 its subsequent violation, be strenuously opposed — bis motto being, 
 we are told, " Constancy, no capitulation, and confidence in God!" — 
 he retired to bis family estate at Augbrane, or " Castle Kelly,'' where 
 he died in 1695, leaving behind him two manuscripts, treating of the 
 bistoiy of Ireland dming his own times. 
 
 The first of these works is that published by the Irish Arcbasolo- 
 gical Society, and called " Macarice Excidiump or the " DestruC' 
 tion of Cyprus" The other and more important document, known 
 as *' The 0' Kelly Memoirs," was in the possession of the family in 
 France, at the time of the first French revolution, in the troubles of 
 which it is supposed to have been lost. From what can be ascer- 
 tained of the nature of this work, we learn that it contained a vast 
 amount of private and secret anecdotes and history, relative to the 
 principal actors on the stage of Irish afi'au-s, fi'om 1641 to the days 
 of the writer. It is to be hoped, that by instituting proper inquiries, 
 this manuscript, with many others, equally important on Irish his- 
 tory, and long missing, may yet be recovered and published. 
 
 The state of Ireland, at the period of the compilation of Colonel 
 O'Kelly's work, now under consideration, obliged the author to adopt 
 an allegorical title ;* and, the more efi'ectually to conceal its nature, 
 all the persons mentioned in it are distinguished by semi-classical 
 pseudonyms. Thus, King James is Amasis, the Duke of Tyrconnel 
 
 * NHS02 MAKAPIA, or the Blessed Island, one of the Greek names 
 of Cyprus, was peculiariy applicable to Ireland, which, in Pagan and early 
 Christian ages, was styled "Insula Sacra," or the Island of Saints. 
 
 Without entering on a lengthened examination of the precedents which 
 Colonel O'Kelly might have adduced for the use of pseudonyms in poli- 
 tical writings, we may refer to the " Gargantua and Pantagruel" of Rabe- 
 lais, supposed to contain a covert satire on the French court ; the " Ar- 
 genis," of John Barclay, published in 1622, on the wars of the League; 
 Meliander representing Henry III., Lycogenes the family of Guise, and^r- 
 genis the succession of the crown. This book, the favourite of Richelieu 
 and of William Cowper, has been ridiculed for its pedantry by the witty 
 Padre d'lsla, in his amusing history of " Fra Gerundio de Campazas," 
 ♦' Dodona's Grove," by James Howell, is a clumsy allegory on the times of 
 Charles I. " Le Grand Cyrus" of Mademoiselle de Scuderi, represents the 
 principal persons of the Hotel Rambouillet, under the garbs of Persians 
 and Babylonians, and was so fashionable in its day, that the eloquent Fle- 
 chier, in his sermon at the funeral of Julie d'Angennes, spoke of her as 
 *^ V incomparable Artenice." 
 
 These works, and many other of the same nature, not necessary to in- 
 troduce here, are now only regarded as the curiosities of literature ; while 
 the " Absalom and Achitophel" of " glorious" John Dryden, published in 
 1681, will probably live as long as the English language. 
 
52 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 Coridon, Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, is designated Lysander; and the 
 writer himself is veiled under the mystic name oiPhilotas. 
 
 This system was, no doubt, rendered agreeable to an author of 
 O'Kelly's time, from its similarity to the custom observed by the fa- 
 shionable Continental satirists, and other chroniclers of the gallantries 
 and intrigues of the nobility. The "Destruction of Cyprus^' contains 
 a nan-ative of the civil and military affairs of the kingdom of Ireland, 
 from the landing of James IL, in 1689, to the embarkation of the 
 Irish mihtary for France, in 1691, generally known as "the Flight 
 of the Wild Geese." The -wTiter occasionally furnishes us with 
 anecdotes and personal sketches of the principal characters of those 
 times, and takes no pains to conceal his objections, as a partizan of 
 "the old Irish, to the proceedings of the Duke of Tyi'connell, one of the 
 most remarkable men of his day, admirably calculated for the diffi- 
 cult position in which he was placed, and whom even his opponents 
 admitted to be a generous and gallant enemy, who, in the worst and 
 most threatening times, never swerved from his allegiance to his King 
 or his country. The principal value of O'Kelly's book is the view 
 it gives us of the state of feeling among the Irish Jacobites, which 
 has never yet been sufficiently illustrated, as, until the discovery of 
 the " Destruction of Cyprus,^'' no document of the kind was known to 
 exist — a most serious loss to the historian, and the want of which 
 cannot be ascribed to the deficiency of contemporary Jacobite authors 
 capable of producing such a work, when we recollect that writers so 
 accomplished as Anthony Hamilton* and Dr. Michael Moor were to 
 be found among the Irish adherents of King James. 
 
 * Author of the inimitable " Memoires de Gramont." It is amusing 
 to observe the errors into which English writers have fallen in their ac- 
 counts of this celebrated man. They were not even aware that he served 
 in the Irish army as Major-General and Colonel of Infantry, under Lord 
 Mountcashel. Dr. Michael Moor was a learned Roman Catholic priest, 
 appointed Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, by James IL, whom he fol- 
 lowed into France, where he was consulted by Louis XIV., relative to the 
 restoring and remodelling the University of Paris. Moor established a chair 
 for experimental philosophy; and it was principally on his account, that the 
 king founded the royal college called " College de Cambray." His pupils 
 became the most celebrated in Europe ; he could number amongst them 
 Boileau, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Fleury, Languet, Poree, and, with 
 many others, the celebrated historian Rollin, his immediate successor. 
 It was highly creditable to the heads of the University of Dublin, that they 
 conferred a pension on some of Moor's relations, in acknowledgment of his 
 services in preserving the College library during the wars of King James. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 53 
 
 In consequence of this deficiency of Jacobite printed documents, 
 the history of the L-ish wars of the Revolution has been hitherto 
 dra^Yn entirely from the works of writers, whose dependency on the 
 government, established on the ruin of the partizans of King James, 
 efifectually prevented them giving us an account displeasing or unpa- 
 latable to their paymasters. Hence the publications of Stoiy, King, 
 Hams, and of others of that character, must be classed with the licensed 
 pamphlets, " printed by authority," and with the distorted accoimts 
 given in the official gazettes, which, having been copied into the 
 Continental periodicals,* have since passed current for history. It 
 was thus, that the acute and suspicious Voltaire was led to express 
 his surprise that the Iiish, of whose brilliant military exploits 
 abroad, in his time, " all Europe rang from side to side," should have 
 *' always fought badly at home." 
 
 The official and public destruction^ of all accessible Jacobite 
 documents, and the rigid and inquisitorial censorship of the press, 
 maintained under successive governments, effectually prevented the 
 public confutation of " ascendancy" calumnies, however gross. The 
 
 * The League of Augsburgh, it may be remarked, united all the powers of 
 Europe against Louis XIV. and James II. Hence the exaggerated ac- 
 counts of the success of the allied army against the Irish were received 
 with as much avidity by its Continental partizans, as was the false report of 
 the death of William III. by the Parisians. The Irish gained nothing 
 by their alliance with "le grand Monarque," as shown in note at page 34, 
 except the enmity of all Europe. 
 
 With respect to the falsehoods circulated in the " London Gazette," we 
 may adduce the following instance : — The account published in that paper, 
 stating the loss at the first siege of Limerick, and purporting to be written 
 from the camp there, says, " What men we lost in these actions we cannot 
 precisely say ; but it's thought we have had about four or five hundred killed 
 and wounded since the beginning of the siege" — that is, from the 9th to the 
 28th of August. Mr. O'Callaghan has, however, shown from original 
 Williamite documents, that the loss of the foreigners at the last assault of 
 the town, which lasted but a few hours, and which was so gallantly repulsed 
 by the Irish, amounted to the number, in killed and wounded, of two 
 thousand one hundred and forty-eight ! 
 
 t All the Jacobite documents which the government could collect were 
 publicly burned in Dublin, in the year 1695. So effectually was the 
 destruction of such papers pursued, that no copy of King James's Gazette 
 has yet been discovered. Mr. O'Callaghan, after a diligent and lengthened 
 search, was able to obtain but a single copy of the only known printed 
 Jacobite account of the earlier portion of the war. Towards the close of 
 the last century, a large collection of original letters, written during the 
 times of King James, was destroyed, on the occasion of the burning of a 
 house in Armagh by the hirelings of the government of that day. 
 
54 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 works of the Eev. Charles Leslie,* and of the Rev. John Mackenzie, 
 in reply to the statements of Archbishop King, and the Rev. Colonel 
 George Walker, of Deny, have exposed such an amount of flagrant 
 mendacity and falsehood in those ecclesiastical dignitaries, that we 
 are at a loss to compute the extent to which party spirit may 
 influence laymen, when those whose divine mission is to propa- 
 gate truth, are to be found, for worldly considerations, outraging one 
 of the most sacred precepts of the Gospel. So agreeable, however, 
 is the " Romance of History," that the publications of Drs. King and 
 Walker have gone through innumerable editions ; while the books of 
 the honest Nonjuring and Presbyterian clergymen, having been sup- 
 pressed, as far as possible, are scarcely ever to be met with. 
 
 These incontrovertible historic facts explain the reasons why a 
 war, which cost Britain eighteen millions, laying the foundation 
 of her national debt, and which lasted half as long as the great 
 Peninsular campaigns, having been only brought to a conclusion 
 by granting the Irish their own terms, has, hitherto, been represented 
 as a glorious contest, in which a handful of English and Anglo-Irish, 
 by a continued series of the most heroic achievements, signally de- 
 feated an immense number of Irish and French troops, most liberally 
 paid, and furnished with every necessary, by Louis XlV.f 
 
 * This writer, in the preface to his work, explains the difficulty he 
 experienced in getting it through the press. The printer was afraid to put 
 his name to it, and the copies were seized in all directions. With regard 
 to the veracity of the Rev. Charles Leslie, Home, the celebrated biblical 
 critic, tells us, that " a clergyman's library should not be without this 
 author's theological works. He is said to have brought more persons from 
 other persuasions into the Church of England than any man did." Doctor 
 Johnson observed, " Leslie was a reasoner, and a reasoner who was not 
 to be reasoned against." 
 
 Dr. William King, Leslie's opponent, was appointed by letters patent 
 Bishop of Derry, in 1691 ; and further presented in 1702 to the See 
 of Dublin. George Story, author of the ^'■Impartial History" of the Irish 
 Wars, obtained the Deanery of Limerick — Walter Harris, the third of 
 these historians, received a pension from the government of the day. 
 
 f A general historical error prevails, that the French troops performed the 
 principal part in these Irish campaigns. It is time to correct this mistake. 
 We have the best authority, that " all the succours which came from France 
 were but in exchange for the like number of the best Irish troops sent over 
 under Lord Mountcashel. The arms the French Minister gave were so 
 bad that they did little service ; and the cloaths he sent so scanty, and so 
 coarse, that many of the Irish regiments preferred their old ragged ones 
 before them." These Frenchmen were present at the Boyne; but took no 
 part in that affair, hitherto so much misrepresented. After that event, they 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 55 
 
 Such statements are, however, completely disproved by the ori- 
 ginal documents, which show that, throughout those campaigns, the 
 Irish army was, in every instance, numerically inferior to that of their 
 opponents, which consisted of the flower of the troops of the twelve 
 most warlike European nations, commanded by the renowned 
 masters of the miUtary science, lavishly paid, and abundantly sup- 
 plied with all the materiel for war; while the Irish were raw and 
 undisciplined, badly clothed, badly armed, almost without artillery, 
 and the exchequer of King James was only able to afford the pay of 
 one penny a day to his private soldiers.* Owing to the enmity 
 
 marched to Limerick, which, before the first siege, they quitted for Galway, 
 whence they returned home, without having performed any service. It is 
 true that the Irish were commanded at Aughrim by a French general — 
 St. Ruth ; but he brought neither men nor money with him. Owing to the 
 League of Augsburgh, as stated at page 53, the Irish, during these 
 campaigns, had to contend single-handed against troops from all the nations 
 of Europe, except those of France, whose assistance, we have shown, 
 was useless ; and accordingly, throughout this war, the Jacobite documents 
 always speak of the Irish as being opposed to the forces of " the Allies." 
 
 From an ofl&cial document, given by the editor from the State Paper 
 Office, drawn up in 1690, and setting forth the respective complement of 
 soldiers, with the names of regiments, &c., for England, Scotland, Flanders, 
 the West Indies, and Ireland, we find that the proportion for England is 
 specified as 11,343 men ; for Scotland, 5,878 men ; for Flanders, against Louis 
 XIV.^s army there, 1 1,444 men ; for the West Indies, 960 men ; for Ireland^ 
 35,289 men! Therefore, out of a total of 64,614 Williamite soldiers, it was 
 calculated that, while but 29,325 were to be stationed in England, Scotland, 
 Flanders, and the West Indies altogether, Ireland alone should have 35,289 
 men, besides 25,000 Militia! And opposite this large amount in the 
 original document, the following memorandum is added : — " For which 
 4,(>C)0 recruits of foot, at least, will be necessary, besides those to be made 
 in Ireland!" But this amount of 35,289 soldiers for Ireland was found to 
 be insufficient : for the number of privates belonging to the infantry, 
 horse, and dragoon regiments, of the army of William III., for Ireland 
 in 1691, are in the official list set down at not less than 40,000 men ! And 
 to these an addition of several thousands must be made for officers, and men 
 and officers, connected with the great train of Williamite artillery, which, 
 as far as we can karn, amounted, with cannon and mortars, to a total from 
 90 to 100 pieces. Such was the overwhelming force against which the 
 small Irish army so long, and so bravely, contended ; and in the words of 
 their gallant countryman, the Chevalier Charles Wogan, they may be truly 
 said " to have buried the synagogue with honor." 
 
 * " The Irish soldiers during whole winters had existed without any pay, 
 at times on horse flesh, at other times on half a pound of bread per 
 day ; had been clothed in rags, bare-headed, and bare-footed ; quartered in 
 huts inundated with water, with scarce any covering but the canopy of 
 heaven, benumbed by the cold, diseased by the moisture of a wet climate, 
 and without fuel to })reserve animal heat. They had made those sacrifices 
 to their king and country; and when their officers and great men were 
 
56 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 of the Freucli Minister Louvois, the supplies and assistance received 
 from France were contemptible. The Irish had thus to stand 
 alone against an overwhelming army, composed of the finest soldiers 
 in the world. We may further observe, for the information of per- 
 sons who have been taught to consider these campaigns as disgrace- 
 ful to the memory of the Irish adherents of King James, that some 
 of the best regiments, and even the private guai'ds, of the Prince of 
 Orange, consisted, in gi'eat part, of Roman Catholics. 
 
 The history of Ireland, at this period, had been so ingeniously 
 falsified, in the published contemporary works, that our most labo- 
 rious literary antiquaries, who had not hesitated to undertake the 
 illustration of the early and most obscm-e portion of our annals, 
 refrained from entering on the examination of authorities which, to 
 them, appeared indisputable. 
 
 Mr. O'Callaghan, however, conceiving it improbable that the sol- 
 diers, whose bravery had won the admu-ation of Europe, at Marsaglia, 
 Cremona, Luzzara, and Ramillies, should have behaved so inglo- 
 riously, as had been represented, at home, when they were in arms 
 for their country and their king, commenced his researches among 
 the Continental and British manuscript repositories ; and a portion 
 of the results of his labors appears in the notes to this edition* 
 of the " Destruction of Cyprus" 
 
 deserting, true to their colours, and faithful to their engagements, had 
 never swerved from the fidelity they had sworn to; and following the 
 fortunes of their king, they submitted to the sacrifices he required, 
 in exile and adversity. Noble and generous men, taken from the hum- 
 blest life, you want but an historian to rescue your fame from the 
 calumnies of your conquerors, and to elevate you to a level with the 
 soldiers of the republics of antiquity !" — Military History of the Irish 
 Nation. 8vo. Dublin- 1845. 
 
 * The " Camden Society," in 1841, published an edition of the " Destruc- 
 tion of Cyprus," in which the notes, by the editor, Mr. T. Crofton Croker, 
 did not exceed thirty pages ; while those of Mr. O'Callaghan, in the edition 
 published by the Irish Archfeological Society, occupy upwards of three 
 hundred and fifty pages, in type nearly as small as that used in the present 
 notes. We Avould gladly have seen him give more copious illustrations, 
 as the value of the critical examination of so minute an investigator 
 can only be appreciated by those students who are conversant with the 
 accounts hitherto received of the same events. Mr. Croker's annotations 
 consist almost entirely of extracts from the notoriously false " London 
 Gazette," and other government publications equally mendacious. This 
 demonstrates clearly, that Irish history can only be written and produced 
 properly in Ireland. The day has happily passed when one-sided accounts 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 57 
 
 We there fiud the most minute and important information on all 
 the controverted points, derived from the unquestionable authority of 
 muster rolls, original government documents, and official despatches; 
 coupled with a critical investigation and profound analyzation of 
 the printed contemporary publications, unincumbered with super- 
 fluous comment, and all set forth in a calm and truth-seeking spirit of 
 historical research. The Editor has thus perfectly succeeded in re- 
 moving from the Irish the stigma of having " always fought badly at 
 home," and has identified his name with the military history of our 
 country.* In accomplishing this arduous task he must have felt, with 
 Sismondi, that he " should have to beat down many an idol which men 
 have delighted to worship ; that he should have to dispel many favorite 
 illusions, neither consulting feelings, nor sparing prejudices. Full 
 well did he know that he should be rarely praised ; but an historian 
 has a sterner duty to fidfil than that of pleasing his readers — a far 
 more noble object than success." 
 
 The Society's edition of the " Destruction of Cyprus'^ must not, 
 however, be regarded as a history solely of the campaigns of 
 1689-91. In the "notes and illustrations" will be found profound 
 and lucid essays on the most important portions of our annals ;"j* and 
 
 were eagerly received. The spirit of inquiry is abroad, and no historical 
 document will now be accepted with confidence, which does not fairly give 
 the authorities on both sides. Mr. Croker is an elegant poet, and a charm- 
 ing illustrator of " Fairy Legends ;" but his edition of Colonel O'Kelly's 
 v^ork has shown that he is totally incompetent for the task of an impartial 
 historical investigator. 
 
 * It is perfectly evident, that the editor of the Archaeological Society's 
 edition of the " Destruction of Cyprus" has before him the materials for 
 illustrating the affairs of Ireland during the times of James II. The bare 
 collection and examination of such a mass of documents must necessarily have 
 been the labor of many years on the Continent, and in Great Britain and 
 Ireland. We therefore trust that Mr. J. C. O'Callaghan will give us a history 
 of that period, in a narrative form, copiously illustrated with original docu- 
 ments on both sides of the question. Such a work, on the last great national 
 and legitimate war in this country, would at once assume a standard posi- 
 tion in the Irish historical library, and moreover, form a necessary introduc- 
 tion to the " History of the Irish Brigades in the Service of France," 
 on which, we understand, he is at present engaged. 
 
 t There are many hitherto controverted historical questions finally settled 
 in this edition of the "Destruction of Cyprus." Notes 62, 63, 64, 67, 
 and the Appendix, demonstrate that the Irish hierarchy's formal transfer of 
 the Kingdom of Ireland to Henry II, of England, in the Synod of Cashel, 
 A.D. 1172, was the result of a previous correspondence of the native 
 Prelates with the See of Rome ; even in an age, when, according to the 
 
58 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 there are few, even the most erudite, who will not find satisfaction 
 in consulting this valuable compendium of Iiish learning. It, 
 indeed, clearly demonstrates the necessity of placing our history on 
 an entirely new basis, which, to be lasting, must be founded on calm 
 and lengthened investigation, and a thorough examination of ori- 
 ginal documents. 
 
 The appearance of this edition of the " Destruction of Cyprus'' 
 was extremely opportune, at a time when the history of the period 
 of which it treats was about to be brought before the public, in 
 the brilhant and fascinating pages of Macaulay, who, if he desire to 
 attain to the character of a faithful historian, must carefully study 
 Mr. O'Callaghan's elaborate production. This, for his own sake, we 
 trust he will do ; and laying aside all prejudices, treat the Irish with 
 as much impartiality and historic justice as our gallant and honest 
 countryman. Colonel Napier, has exhibited towards the French. 
 
 John De Colton,* an ecclesiastic of importance in his day, was 
 successively Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, Lord Chancellor, Justice, 
 and finally, in 1382, Primate of all Ireland. An excellent illus- 
 tration of the sacerdotal character of those ages, we find him, at 
 one time enacting stringent ordinances for the regulation of his 
 clergy ; and at another period, he is to be seen in arms, at the head 
 of a band of knights, raised at his own expense, defending the 
 limited tenitories of the Anglo-Normans against the vigorous as- 
 saults of the native clans. In 1374, the King, in consideration of 
 
 Italian historians, the Popes and subordinate clergy at Rome were beaten 
 and imprisoned, or mutilated and murdered, by the nobles and people of 
 the " eternal city." The authenticity is here clearly proved of the English 
 Pope's Bull, which the late Rev. Dr. Lanigan erroneously stated the editors 
 of the collection of Papal official documents were ashamed to print. Ro- 
 deric O'Conor, King of Ireland, and the native Princes, who, contrary to 
 all former precedents, were excluded from the Synod at Cashel, did not 
 recognise the attempt there made by the Irish Clergy to place their country 
 in the hands of the King of England. We learn from the letter of the 
 Chiefs of Ireland to Pope John XXII., that the old monarchs of the country 
 ** acknowledged no superior in temporal affairs." 
 
 * Acts of Archbishop Colton in his Metropolitan Visitation of the Diocese of 
 Derry, A.D. MCCCXCVIL ; with a Rental of the See Estates at that 
 time. Edited, from the Original Roll, preserved in the Archiepiscopal Record 
 Closet of Armagh, ivith an Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. William 
 Reeves, D.D., M.R.LA.; Bachelor in Medicine of Trinity College, Dub- 
 lin; Perpetual Curate of Kilconriola, in the Diocese of Connor. Dublin : 
 for the Irish Archaeological Society. 1850, 
 
THE HISTOPJC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 59 
 
 the losses he had sustained during his military expeditions, granted 
 him the sum of forty pounds sterling. Not too large a remuneration, 
 even taking into account the high value of money at that period, 
 when we recollect that on many occasions he remained in the field 
 for several days. And when Newcastle, in the County of Wicklow, 
 was taken, and bm*ned by the Clan of O'Byrne, although there was 
 no money in the Treasury, De Colton pawned his own goods, and 
 and with the cash thereby obtained, he, and Nicholas Sergeaunt, a 
 citizen of Dublin, together with thirty-five of their associates, held 
 the castle for five days, maintaining themselves at their o"vvn cost, 
 there being no person at that time who could be prevailed upon ta 
 take charge of the fortress. For all which, and because, when 
 he retired fi*om this latter place, he had lost a horse worth twenty 
 marks, which was killed by the enemy, the king commanded that he 
 should receive the gratuity we have mentioned. 
 
 Nor were his talents limited to military afiairs; for so high an 
 opinion had Richard II. of his diplomatic powers, that he selected 
 him to act as Ambassador to the Court of Rome. After his retm-u, 
 he resigned his See, and died in the year 1404, leaving behind 
 him two works on the distracted state of the Church in his own 
 time. His biographers represent him as a man of the most sweet 
 and affable temper, and bestow lavish praise on his unbounded gene- 
 rosity and hospitality. 
 
 An original record of the proceedings of Primate De Colton, on 
 the occasion of his visitation of the diocese of Deny in J 397, was 
 some time since discovered among the archives of the See of Armagh 
 by the Rev. William Reeves. Appreciating the value of this 
 manuscript, in illustrating the state of the Irish Church, in the 
 fourteenth centmy, and, with a munificence worthy of the Prelate, 
 whose acts it chronicles, he printed the document at his own expense, 
 and presented it to the Members of the Society for the year 1850. 
 
 The highest encomium we can pass on the manner in which this 
 book has been edited by the Rev. Dr. Reeves, is to say, that it 
 deserves to be classed with his profound work on " Down, Connor, 
 and Dromore;"* the most valuable contribution yet made to the 
 
 4to. Dublin ; Hodges and Smith, 1848, 
 
 F 
 
60 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 history of the ecclesiastical antiquities of Ireland. And we trust that 
 our learned ecclesiologist will follow up his labours by the publica- 
 tion of his promised edition of the great work on the Ecclesiastical 
 Taxation of Ireland, A.D. 1306, from the original Exchequer Rolls, 
 preserved in the Carlton Ryde Record Office. The value of such 
 documents is not confined to their use in Church history. The recent 
 works on similar subjects, printed by the Scotch Societies, demon- 
 strate the vast amount of important information to be derived from 
 them for illustrating the progress of civilization, and the various 
 manners and modes of life in former ages. 
 
 We have thus essayed to give an account of the works published 
 by the Irish Archaeological Society; but, as we before stated, the 
 limits of this paper can only be expected to furnish a brief and 
 compendious \iew of their invaluable contents. It may, however, 
 seiTe to indicate where precise and accurate information is to 
 be found on particular portions of Irish histoiy; and if we suc- 
 ceed in awakening a desire for the study of their country's lite- 
 rature amongst those who have hitherto been strangers to it, our 
 object will be fully attained. StiU, it must be recollected that the So- 
 ciety's books are not intended to be "j^opw/ar," in the general accep- 
 tation of that term ; such an idea is incompatible with the production 
 of historic materials. These volumes form the foundation on which the 
 future writer will rear the superstructure of a great national history ; 
 and we hope henceforth to seg our countrymen contributing to the 
 production of such a work, by assisting in the preseiTation of the monu- 
 ments left by their fathers, instead of seconding the efforts of ephe- 
 meral and delusive poHtical projectors. Far, however, be it from us to 
 advocate the study of this branch of self-knowledge to the exclusion of 
 any other. But, we would have Lishmen to remember that it was 
 not by the cultivation of the histories and antiquities of distant coun- 
 tries, that the author of "Waverley" raised "Caledonia stern 
 and wild," into the land of tourists, and the favorite resort of 
 Royalty. Nor was it by the study of a foreign literature that the 
 thoughtful-souled Goethe, and the many-gifted Schiller, have made 
 their German fatherland world-famous and illustrious. The moun- 
 tain hamlet of Arqua, in Lombardy, is not now visited as the 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 61 
 
 -resting place of the Latin epic poet, but as the shrine which contains 
 the reHcs of the Petrarca, 
 
 " Whos rethorike swete 
 Enlumined all Itaille of poetrie."* 
 
 It was fortunate for the fame of the great Florentine, that the 
 good monks of the monastery, founded by the Irish St. Columbanus, 
 at Bobbio, persuaded him to compose his " Divina Commedia," 
 in the " lingua volgare" of his own country — a decision which in- 
 fluenced the fate of Italian literature, and rendered the lover of 
 Beatrice Portinari immortal and revered as one 
 
 . " Who, in times 
 
 Dark and untaught, began with charming verse, 
 To tame the rudeness of his native land."f 
 
 The most unprejudiced critics have expressed their conviction, 
 that the Irish melodies of " the sweetest lyrist of our saddest 
 wrongs" will outliv^e his more elaborate "works on distant countries; 
 although the latter are replete with all the graces of the most exqui- 
 site poetry, and all the fascinating splendours of Oriental romance. 
 
 If we feel a proud satisfaction in contemplating the goodly 
 volumes issued by the Irish Archasological Society, and which must 
 be regarded as so many " chartce periturce,^^ rescued from almost in- 
 evitable decay and oblivion, let the honor be given to those disin- 
 terested and enlightened men, J who, " unactuated by antiquarian 
 pedantry, and solely instigated by a sincere desire to do their duty in 
 a cause of national interest and importance," have organized and car- 
 ried out their noble design of creating and fostering a native Irish 
 literature. Despite almost insurmountable obstacles, and even at a 
 
 * Chaucer ; Prologue to the " Clerkes Tale." 
 
 f Akenside. 
 
 X In addition to those mentioned in the text and at page 14, as having 
 aided the national literary cause, the following demand notice : — 
 
 George Petrie, V. P. R.I. A., LL.D., a name beyond all praise. George 
 Alexander Hamilton, M.P. for the University of Dublin, to whose zeal for 
 the promotion of learning and education Irish literature is under numerous 
 obligations. Major Thomas A. Larcom, of the Royal Engineers. His 
 edition of Sir William Petty's proceedings relative to the first English sur- 
 vey of Ireland will soon be ready for presentation to the members of the 
 Irish Archeeological Society. Aquilla Smith, M.D., Treasurer of the 
 same Society, our most learned Irish numismatist, and author of several 
 valuable essays published by the Royal Irish Academy. Evelyn P. Shirley, 
 
62 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 time when our country was nearly reduced to the fearful state in which 
 it was, when the historian of Elizabeth tells us, that, by the evil po- 
 licy of bad ministers, " little was left in Ireland for Her Majesty to 
 reign over but ashes and carcasses," and when "the southern province 
 seemed totally depopulated, and, except within the cities, exhibited 
 a hideous scene of famine and desolation." 
 
 It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the good which, in a country 
 circumstanced like Ireland, is to be derived from historical research. 
 Truth, we know, is powerful at all times, whilst its perversion is 
 ever attended Avith the most disastrous consequences. The falsifi- 
 cation of history has hitherto been, perhaps, the most formidable 
 
 M.P., M.R.I. A., one of the Knights of the Shire for the County of 
 Monaghan, author of the excellent work, on the history of his patri- 
 mony, entitled " Some Account of the Territory or Dominion of Farney, 
 in the Province and Earldom of Ulster," 4to, 1845, He has also 
 published, in the present year, a volume of " Original Letters, illustrative 
 of the State of the Church of Ireland during the time of Edward VI.," 
 from the MS. at Lambeth. ' William E. Hudson, M.R.I.A., member 
 of the Councils of our Archaeological and Celtic Societies, and author 
 of the critical analysis of the orthography of the early Irish scribes, ap- 
 pended to the "Book of Rights." This gentleman's munificence to the 
 Celtic Society (whose publications we noticed in No. II. of the Irish 
 Quarterly Review), is fully acknowledged in the last annual Report 
 of that body. Samuel Ferguson, M.R.I. A., author of some valuable 
 papers among the Academy's " Transactions," and of many admirable 
 Irish ballads and historical essays, which we hope to see published in a 
 collected form. Frederick W. Burton, our most eminent Dublin artist, 
 and member of the "Committee of Antiquities." A classical group from 
 his pencil, representing Archbishop Ussher, Luke Wadding, and Roderick 
 O'Flaherty, forms the illustrated title-page of the valuable volumes pub- 
 lished by the Celtic Society, and is the largest and most exquisite woodcut 
 ever executed in Ireland by a native engraver. Joseph H. Smith, M.R.I. A., 
 who has published several essays on Irish historical subjects, among the Pro- 
 ceedings of the Academy, and is at present engaged in editing, from the 
 University Manuscripts, the interesting account of the Progresses of the 
 Lords Lieutenant of Ireland. Edward Clibborn, Esq., Curator of the Aca- 
 demy's Museum, which ow^es many of its principal ornaments to his exertions. 
 Before his connection with the Institution its most valuable antiquities and 
 manuscripts were huddled together in an obscure and inaccessible reposi- 
 tory ; they are now, owing to his assiduity, classed and arranged in a style 
 not to be excelled by any European Collection. 
 
 In closing our notice of this " dotta compagnia," whose names will not be 
 forgotten by the future historian of the revival of Irish learning, we feel 
 bound to state, that their efforts have been ever seconded by INIessrs. Hodges 
 and Smith, Booksellers to the University. A glance at the catalogue of 
 their publications will show how much they have done for the pro- 
 motion of national literature. The valuable series of Irish manuscripts 
 brought together by them, some years ago, and still known as " Hodges and 
 Smith's Collection," is now one of the chief glories of the Academy's library. 
 
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 63 
 
 weapon in the annoury of the political demagogue. The publica- 
 tion of our true annals will totally deprive the mob-orator and the 
 factious journalist of their strongest hold on the passions of an 
 irascible and imaginative race, easily excited by exaggerated and 
 one-sided representations of former events. Irishmen will learn, from 
 their own history, that they have been too much the victims of mis- 
 guiding speculators and trading politicians ; and they will find that 
 education and industry are the only true and lasting sources of 
 national prosperity and greatness. The foundation of the Irish 
 Archaeological Society marks an era in our literature. From the pe- 
 riod of its formation, we can distinctly trace the onward progress 
 which has been made in the cultivation of national historical research ; 
 and the many valuable works which have, since that time, issued from 
 the Dublin press, fully attest the beneficial effects of the Society's in- 
 fluence. An ample field still lies before om* Aixh^eologists ; numbers 
 of the most important Celtic manuscripts still remain unpublished;* 
 
 * We trust that the Council of the Society will see the necessity of un- 
 dertaking the publication of the larger and more comprehensive manuscript 
 works, which serve to illustrate various historical eras. Of these, one of the 
 most important is the '' Coghadh Gaoidheal le Gallaihh," or '= Wars of the 
 Irish with the Danes," a complete copy of which has been lately discovered 
 in the Bibliotheque des Dues de Burgogne, at Brussels. This document 
 contains ample information on the great struggle which terminated so 
 gloriously for Ireland ; and the means exist of illustrating it minutely, from 
 contemporary Irish productions. We understand that the Danish govern- 
 ment have signified their desire to contribute to the expense of the publica- 
 tion of this important work. A late report of the Society of Northern 
 Antiquarians, at Copenhagen, demonstrates the interest with which Mr. 
 Worsaae's communications relative to the old Irish manuscript accounts of 
 the wars of the Danes in our country, were received. Mr Curry's inves- 
 tigations prove that this History of the Danish Wars was written at a com- 
 paratively short period after the battle of Clontarf, which is further at- 
 tested by a fragmentary document preserved in the " Book of Leinster," 
 a manuscript of the twelfth century, compiled by the tutor of Dermod 
 Mac Murchad, and containing a pathetic note, written on the very day of 
 that prince's expulsion from Ireland — an event which was attended with such 
 important consequences. Recent researches among our ancient Irish 
 manuscripts demonstrate that the accounts hitherto received of the circum- 
 stances which led to the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland are totally false 
 and inaccurate. The '■'Borama" or History of the " Boromean Tribute," is a 
 ■work of great value in illustrating the earlier portion of our annals, and treats 
 of a subject on which we possess no published information. The History of 
 the Fir Bolgs, or early Belgic colonies in Ireland, also relates to an era on 
 which we have as yet but imperfect accounts. The hagiographical treatises, 
 and lives of the native Irish Saints, also well deserve publication, as no 
 works contain more curious and valuable accounts of the manners and 
 customs of the early inhabitants of Ireland. It must be apparent, that the 
 
64 THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF IRELAND. 
 
 and let us trust that the more enlightened of our countrymen will, fol- 
 lowing the example set by neighbouring nations, no longer allow the 
 ancient records of the piety and learning of their ancestors to lie 
 on the shelves of our collections, unknown and unappreciated, save 
 by a few of the master-minds of our own and foreign lands. 
 " Science and literature," says an eminent living scholar,* " have 
 many departments, not one of which is undeserving of our regard, 
 so long as it is cultivated in a liberal and philosophic spirit ; but the 
 history of our own country, and of its language, has especial claims on 
 our consideration, unless we choose to renounce the name of Irish- 
 men. It is no morbid sentiment which leads us to tm*n, with a long- 
 ing and affectionate interest, to the ancient history and literature of 
 our own country. It is no fond national conceit, which inspires us 
 with the desire to gather and to preserve those of its scattered re- 
 cords, which have escaped the tooth of time, the ravages of barbar- 
 ism, and the persecuting rigor of a miscalculating policy. It is, in- 
 deed, wise in us to soar as high as we may, seeking a wide and clear 
 view of the entire horizon of human knowledge and science ; but, 
 even to those elevated regions let us carry with us a loving remem- 
 brance of the spot of earth from whence we took our flight, of our 
 birth-place, and the home, which is the sanctuary of the purest and 
 strongest of our earthly affections." 
 
 documents in the ancient Irish language, styled by the learned Pictet, 
 "les curieux debris de la primitive Europe," are those which should be first 
 printed ; and we have endeavoured to demonstrate the necessity of under- 
 taking their publication during the lifetime of the Hiberno-Celtic scholars, 
 before referred to. A Committee, we may add, has been appointed by 
 Parliament to examine and report relative to the publication, by the Im- 
 perial Government, of the Brehon Laws, noticed at page 9. 
 
 * Rev. Charles Graves, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor 
 of Mathematics in the University of Dublin. Address delivered in the 
 Royal Irish Academy, on the completion of the subscription for the pur- 
 chase of the Betham Manuscripts, 22nd April, 1851. 
 
 ti8t>& 
 

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