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question, and the King of Cenéal Eoghain from 1103 to 1121 was Domhnall Ua Lochlainn. But the confusion of the entry above is solved by a reference to Archdall's Monasticon. The latter writer says that in the early ages of Christianity in Ireland there was a monastery at Lisgool, and that the feast of a St. Aid or Hugh' was celebrated there on January 25. The Abbey of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, founded centuries afterwards, is supposed to have occupied the same site. Whether these statements are right, or not, is another question, which Mr. Trimble need hardly be expected to solve.

Page 15. 'Sir Henry Bunckar (sic) obtained a grant of the abbey and grounds on the 12th November, 1606, and Sir John Davys purchased them from Sir Henry.'-The first statement here, regarding Sir Henry Brunckar's grant, is taken, with nearly all the succeeding paragraph, from Hill's Plantation in Ulster, page 108. No acknowledgment is made, and the text is copied almost literally. To suggest that Sir John Davys purchased' his estate in county Fermanagh is sheer perversion. Sir John was no fool, and when lands were going for nothing he, or any of the Castle officials, were not likely to forget themselves. Davys selected his Fermanagh estate early in the proceedings of the Ulster Plantation. When rules were being drawn up to regulate the choice of such servitors as were to be undertakers, one rule was that no servitors but martial men were to be admitted saving Mr. Attorney-General [Davys], who may have a middle proportion in Clinawly, near Lisgoole.' And, accordingly, his patent was passed to him on January 8, 1611. Will Mr. Trimble maintain that the other grantees' purchased' their estates, after the example of Mr. Attorney-General ?

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Pages 17-18 purport to give the Four Masters' entries relating to Lisgool. The first two are not found in their Annals at all. They were derived by Sir James Ware from the Clogher Register. There are mistakes and omissions in the remainder which need not be pointed out here.

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Page 39. O'Breislin, historian to Maguire.'-No. The O'Breislins were brehons in Fermanagh, not historians.

Page 41. 'One Anglicised form of Cuchonnacht is Connor, and another is Constantine.'-This is quite wrong. Conchubhar is the Irish of Connor.

1 Hill, Plantation in Ulster, p. 330.

Page 41. Connor Roe Maguire became the first Baron of Enniskillen.'-Connor Roe Maguire died in December 1625. A grant to his son made on January 11, 1628, recounts his services to the Crown, and in virtue thereof, the King instructs his deputy in Ireland to grant unto him, the said Sir Brian Maguire, the honour, style, dignity, and place of Baron of Enniskillen.' 1 Mr. Trimble comes nearer to the correct date at page 91.

Page 44. John, the son of Philip, and grandson of Thomas More; and Thomas, son of Thomas Oge, also grandson of Thomas More. They were second cousins.'-They were first cousins, Mr. Trimble will admit on reflection.

It has been stated above that Mr. Trimble's only acquaintance with the Four Masters is through the wretched English translation of Connellan. This limited knowledge is responsible for a number of errors in the work we are discussing. For example, a certain event is said on page 45 to have occurred on the 13th of September, 1484. Anyone who can read the original Irish, or who is in possession of O'Donovan's version in English, will know that the said event took place on the thirteenth of the Kalends of September,' that is, on August 20. Similar mistakes occur elsewhere in the volume.

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A certain Maguidhir died in 1503. 'Edmond Maguire appears to have succeeded as chief,' says Mr. Trimble. There is no doubt at all about the succession at this point, and Mr. Trimble is quite wrong. Edmond was chief until his deposition in 1484. In this deposition he acquiesced in 1486 the sons of Maguidhir (Edmond) were ransomed, and on the same day their father resigned his lordship.' The entry of this Edmond's death in the Four Masters at the year 1507 is not quite correct. It should run as follows: 'Edmond, the son of Thomas Og, son of Thomas Mor, died.' Mr. Trimble's mistake is due to the fact that between 1503 and 1527 certain individuals are referred to as 'sons of Maguire.' These he takes to be children of the then reigning Maguire-an altogether wrong assumption. The Maguire from 1503 to 1527 was Conchubhar Mór, grandfather of the celebrated Connor Roe, whom in the end of Elizabeth's reign the Irish called 'the Queen's Maguire.' Page 48. Red Hugh O'Donnell also defeated another

1 Patent Rolls of Charles I, p. 304.

2 Four Masters.

3 See the Annals of Ulster.

English force at a ford on the Avonmore, and went to Spain in 1602 for the purpose of inducing the King of Spain to send an army with a fleet, which likely led to the coming of the Spanish fleet to Kinsale.'-This is a specimen of Mr. Trimble's English. It seems to convey the view that Red Hugh's journey to Spain was responsible for the Spanish aids that fought at Kinsale in the winter of 1601-2. But Kinsale was lost before Red Hugh embarked, as every school-child knows. Another possibility: the passage may mean that the victory on the Avonmore (1598) led to the landing of the Spaniards in 1601; post hoc ergo propter hoc!

Page 52. A passage is referred to the Calendar of the Patent Rolls of Elizabeth's reign. This is wrong. The grant there cited will be found in the Fiants of Elizabeth, issued by the Record Office. With his usual carelessness Mr. Trimble prints' rest' as East,' county' as country,' permit' as form it,''they' as 'then,' and makes sundry other errors in transcribing the document.

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Page 54. Sometimes this ceremony took place at SciathGabhra-an-tSainridh.'-The author is here quoting from the Four Masters, A.D. 1589. At that year they narrate the inauguration of Aodh Maguidhir at Sciath Gabhra 'precisely. Mr. Trimble, having nothing better to follow than Connellan, incorporates the adverb in the place-name. Further on he makes leath-as, an Irish word meaning one shoe,' into 'documents,' while on page 55 the masts of the Lough Erne flotilla are made to stand as a 'grave' along the shore. The latter is no misprint, for the statement is repeated on page 56. The passage where it occurs is taken almost without change from O'Grady's Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts, but Mr. Trimble has no use for quotation marks:

Pages 56, 64. Sir George Bingham is made Governor of Connaught. Neither of the George Binghams was ever Governor of Connaught, though Sir Richard was.

Page 58. Sir William Fitzwilliam is said to have conducted in person operations against Enniskillen in February, 1593-4.-Fitzwilliam was in Dublin when the siege took place, and Mr. Trimble actually prints two despatches sent to the Lord Deputy at Dublin from Captain John Dowdall, who conducted the expedition and captured Enniskillen on February 2. The second was penned the first daie of our entrie,' and was signed by the officer in command, that is,

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Dowdall. A messenger made a statement in Dublin describing how Captain Dowdall secured the castle. This statement is printed on page 63, and yet a few lines farther back Mr. Trimble puts the feat to the credit of 'Captain Bingham.'

That Lughaidh O Cleirigh, the Four Masters who copy him, and O'Sullivan, are all in error in regard to the event here under discussion, can be shown from the contemporary State Paper records. In preparing an edition of O Cleirigh's work I have made the following notes relative to the capture of Enniskillen :

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The Deputy, Sir Wm. Fitzwilliam, was not before Enniskillen in person. He returned from Cavan to Dublin on December 18-28, 1593, Calendar of State Papers, 191. Captain Dowdall, appointed chicf for the prosecution of Maguire,' with 300 men (190), ' has charge of garrison and the whole action' (192). He attacked the castle on January 25February 4 (204). His account of the capture on the ninth day of the siege (207-8). The ninth day was February 2-12, the date of the second despatch (208). On the 1st and 3rd of that month the Lord Deputy directed letters from Dublin to Burghley (202–3). O'Sullivan, in Historia Catholica, tome iii., c. vii., bk. ii., describes the capture of the castle, but he wrongly states that Sir Richard Bingham was in charge of the operation. The latter, however, detached Captain George Bingham to co-operate with Dowdall, which he did under the guidance of an O'Rourke (203, 208).

Page 62. 'An Irish chief's property consisted chiefly of cows.'

One finds it hard to speak with moderation in dealing with ignorant and malicious statements of this kind. The implication they make would seem to be that the English army in Ireland were superior to the natives inasmuch as they set less store on cows.' But in connexion with the event discussed in the preceding paragraphs Dowdall boasts of his taking 700 cowes from the traitors,' not a bad haul for one who, we are to suppose, despised such possessions. But an Irish chief's property did not consist mainly in cows alone. Here are the words of Fynes Morrison, who knew what he was talking about, and describes events in 1600 thus:

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Our captaines, and by their example (for it was otherwise painetull) the common soldiers, did cut downe with their swords all the rebels corne, to the value of ten thousand pound and upward, the only means by which they were to live, and to keepe their Conaghts (or hired souldiers). It seemed incredible, that by so barbarous inhabitants, the ground should be so manured, the fields so orderly fenced, the towns so frequently inhabited, and the high waies and paths so well beaten,

as the Lord Deputy here found them. The reason whereof was, that the Queen's forces, during these warres, never till then came among them.

Again, writing of the year 1589, he says, 'that kingdome was in the best estate that it had beene in of long time, not only peaceable and quiet, but also most plentifull in corne, cattel, and all manner of victuals.

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Page 62, creaghts, we are assured, were a community of relatives in a sept.'-Creaght, which in Irish spelling is caoraigheacht, originally meant a flock of sheep, and subsequently came to be applied to cattle as well. It was then applied to flocks and their herdsmen. The word does not convey the least notion of 'relatives' or 'sept.'

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Page 77. Mr. Trimble says the place where the English were defeated in 1598' is better known as Benburb.'-This is a disgraceful blunder. The defeat of 1598 took place a short distance from Armagh, while Benburb is in county Tyrone, several miles away. Mr. Trimble is here surely mixing up the events of 1598 with those of 1646.

Page 83. A passage quoted from Sir John Davys is meaningless. Several words are miscopied, and one considerable phrase is omitted.

Pages 85-7. Large sections are transferred bodily out of Hill's Plantation in Ulster, and no acknowledgment is made.

On page 1 the writer attempts to give the ancient orthography and meaning of the word 'Fermanagh.' He interprets it as signifying either the men of the monks,' in allusion to the monastery of Devenish, on an island in Lough Erne, or the men of the marshes.' This is nonsense. following is the correct explanation of the name :

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Several tribe-names in Ireland were plurals of the type of the Gaulish Edui, etc. Examples in Ireland are Ulaid 'Ulidians,' which is latinized Ulathi in the Book of Armagh, Erainn Ivernians,' and many others. Sometimes fir 'men' is employed before these plurals, which then appear in the genitive case. Now, Manaig, g. pl. Manach, is a people-name of the same kind. The following passage in the Rawlinson Manuscript B. 502, of the twelfth century, establishes this:

Is do chlainn Ailella moir meic Breccain Manaich Locha Eirne 7 Manaich Ulad i. Manach mac Ailella moir meic Feicc meic Breccain meic Daire barraich meic Cathair. The Manaig of Loch Eirne and the 1 See O'Donovan's note on it at Four Masters, A.D. 1496.

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