urdered, and his Murderer is protected by the Penal Laws-The Annals of the Four Masters-Michael O'Clery-His Dev

l a century later; Kadlubeck, the first historian of Poland, died in 1223; and Stierman could not discover a scrap of writing in all Sweden older than 1159. Indeed, he may be compared favourably even with the British historians, who can by no means boast of such ancient pedigrees as the genealogists of Erinn.[15] Tighernach was of the Murray-race of Connacht; of his

of St. Buithe's monastery (Monasterboice), is also famous for his Synchronisms, which form an admirable abridgment of universal history. He appears to have devoted himself specially to genealogies and pedigrees, while Tighernach took a wider range of literary research. His learning was undoubtedly most extensive. He quotes Eusebius, Orosius, Africanus, Bede, Josephus, Saint Jerome, and many other historical writers, and sometimes compares their statements on points in which they exhibit

d afterwards with the Firbolgs and Tuatha Dé Danann of Erinn,[17] and subsequently with the Milesians. Flann synchronizes the chiefs of various lines of the children of Adam in the East, and points out what monarchs of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, and Greeks, and what Roman emperors were contemporary with the kings of Erinn, and the leaders of its various early colonies. He begins

e than indicate their existence, and to draw attention to the weight which such an accumulation of authority must give to the authenticity of

l and his troopers desolated Celtic homes, and murdered the Celtic dwellers, often in cold blood. The young Mac Firbis was educated for his profession in a school of law and history taught by the Mac Egans of Lecain, in Ormonde. He also studied (about A.D. 1595) at Burren, in the county Clare, in the literary

and a Catalogue of the Monarchs of Erinn; and, finally, an Index, which comprises, in alphabetical order, the surnames and the remarkable places mentioned in this work, which was compiled by Dubhaltach Mac Firbhisigh of Lecain, 1650." He also gives, as was then usual, the "place, time, author, and cause of w

tinguished of our long line of poet-historians. Mac Firbis was a voluminous writer. Unfortunately some of his trea

of of what great and noble deeds may be accomplished under the most adverse circumstances, and one of the many, if not one of the most, triumphant denials of the often-repeated charges of indolence made against the mendicant orders, and of aversion to learning made against religious or

hannon, county Donegal, in the year 1580, and was educated principally in the south of Ireland, which was then more celebrated

eir of bard

of Irish Saints. When Father Ward died, the project was taken up and partially carried out by Father John Colgan. His first work, the Trias Thaumaturgus, contains the lives of St. Patrick, St. Brigid, and St. Columba. The second volu

ld mem

oble and

fs of ancie

ts of wondr

amhs and t

and of the

d its culminating point in the dedication of his life to God in the poor order of St. Francis. In the troubled and disturbed state of Ireland, he had some difficulty in securing a patron. At last one was found who could appreciate intellect,

ow much the race of Gaedhil, the son of Niul, have passed under a cloud and darkness, without a knowledge or record of the obit of saint or virgin, archbishop, bishop, abbot, or other noble dignitary of the Church, or king or of prince, of lord or of chieftain, [or] of the synchronism of connexion of the one with the other." He then explains how he collected the materials for his work, adding, alas! most truly, that should it not be accomplishe

nvent of Dun-na-ngall, and, it was finished in the same convent on the tenth day of August, 163

ce, the devotion of the friars of Donegal, who "gave food and attendance" to their literary brother, and th

hich this brief mention of the MS. materials of Irish history has been made, by showing on what points other historians coincide in their accounts of our first colonists, of their language, customs, and laws; and secondly, how far the accounts which may be

e taking by the Firbolgs; the taking by the Tuatha Dé Danann; the taking by the sons of Miledh [or Miletius]; and their succession down to the monarch Mel

been attained by the more immediate descendants of our first parents. Navigation and commerce existed, and Ireland may have been colonized. The sons of Noah must have remembered and preserved the traditions of their ancestors, and transmitted them to their descendants. Hence, it depended on the relative anxiety of these descendants to preserve the history of the world before the Flood, how much posterity should know of it. MacFirbis

t unquestionably differed in kind. Job wrote his epic poem in a state of society which we should probably term uncultivated; and when Lamech gave utterance to the most ancient and the saddest of human lyrics, the world was in its infancy, and it would appear as if the first artificer in "brass and iron" had only helped t

at the age of stone had already given place to that of brass and iron, which, no doubt, facilitated commerce and colonization, even at this early period of the world's history. The discovery of works of art, of however primitive a character, in the drifts of France and England, indicates an early colonization. The rudely-fashioned harpoon of deer's horn found beside the gigantic whale, in the alluvium of the carse near the base of Dummyat, twenty feet above the highest tide of the nearest estuary, and the tusk of the mastodon lying alongside fragments of pottery in a deposit of the peat an

of which we write, Britain, if not Ireland, formed part of the European continent; but were it not so, we have proof, even in the present day, that screw propellers and iron cast vessel

ntiquity, if not a proof of it, in t

Gaedhils to their origin, to Noah and to Adam; and if he does not believe that, may he not believe that he himself is the son of his

f he does believe this, why should he not believe another history, of which there has been truthful preservation, like the history of Erinn? I say truthful preservation, for it is not only that they [the preservers of it] were very numerous, as we said, preserving the same, b

EHA