918
AN GAOḊAL.
O'Curry's Lectures.
ON THE
MANUSCRIPT MATERIAL OF ANCIENT IRISH HIS¬
TORY.
Lecture III.
Delivered March 20, 1855.
(Continued)
Fanciful as this account of the origin of the far
famed Clonmacnois may at first sight appear,
there still exists on the spot evidence of its verac¬
ity, which the greatest sceptic would find it diffi¬
cult to explain away. There stands within the
ruined precincts of this ancient monastery, a
stone cross, on which, amongst many other sub¬
jects, are sculptured the figures of two men, hold¬
ing an erect staff or pole between them; and al¬
though the erection of this cross may belong (as
I believe it does) to the beginning of the tenth
century, and although it was then set up, no
doubt, to commemorate the building of the Great
Church by the monarch Flann and the Abbot
Colman, there can be but little doubt, if any,
that the two figures of men holding the pole were
intended to perpetuate the memory of the manner
of founding of the primitive Eglais beg, or Little
Church, the history of which was then at least im¬
plicitly believed.
Many abbots and scholars of distinction will be
found amongst the inmates of this retreat of piety
and learning at various periods, I shall mention
here the names of but a few;
A. D. 791. Saint Colchu Ua Duainechda, sur¬
named The Wise, died on the 20th February this
year. He was supreme moderator and prelector,
and master of the celebrated school of this abbey:
he was also a reader of divinity, and wrote a work,
to which he gave the name of Scuab Crabhaigh,
or the Besom of Devotion; he obtained the appel¬
lation of the chief scribe, and was master of all
the Scots of Ireland. Albin, or Aleuin, bishop of
Tritzlar, in Germany, and one of Charlemagne's
tutors, in a letter to Saint Colchu, informs him
that he had sent fifty sheckles (a piece of money
of the value of 1s. 4d.) to the friars of his house,
out of the alms of Charlemagne, and fifty shekels
from himself.
A. D. 887 died Suibhne, the son of Maelumha,
a learned scribe and anchorite. Florence of Wor¬
cester calls him Suifneh, the most esteemed writ¬
er of the Scots, and says that he died in 892.
A. D. 924. On the 7th February, the sage, Doc¬
tor, and Abbott, Colman Mac Ailill, died full of
years and honour, he erected the Great Church
where the patron saint lies interred.
A. D. 981. On the 16th of January died Donn¬
chadh O'Braoin, having obtained a great reputa¬
tion for learning and piety, to avoid the appear¬
ance of vain glory, he resigned the government of
his abbey in the year 974, and returned to Ar¬
magh, where he shut himself up in a small enclos¬
ure, and lived a lonely anchorite till his death.
A. D. 1024. Fachna, a learned professor, and
priest of Clonmacnois, Abbot of lona, and chief
Abbot of Ireland, died this year in Rome, whither
he had gone on a pilgrimage, etc.
Those are but a few of the distinguished child¬
ren of Clonmacnois previous to the time of Tigh¬
ernach.
Tighernach himself was undoubtedly one of the
most remarkable of all the scholars of Clonmac¬
nois. His learning appears to have been very
varied and extensive. He quotes Eusebius, Oros¬
ius, Africanus, Bede, Josephus, Saint Jerome, and
many other historic writers, and sometimes com¬
pares their statements on points in which they ex¬
hsbit discrepancies, and afterwards endeavours to
reconcile their conflicting testimony, and to cor¬
rect the chronological errors of one writer by com¬
parison with the dates given by others. He also
collates the Hebrew text with the Septuagint ver¬
sion of the Scriptures.
These statements, which you will find amply
verified when you come to examine the Annals
of Tighernach in detail, will be sufficient to show
the extent of his general scholarship. It is to be
presumed that he was perfectly acquainted with
the several historical compositions which had
been previous to his time.
The common era, or that computed from the In¬
carnation of our Lord, is used by Tighernach,
though we have no reason to believe that it was so
by the great Irish historical compilers who imme¬
diately preceded him.
Tighernach also appears to have been familiar
with some of the modes of correcting the calendar.
He mentions the Lunar Cycle, and uses the Dom¬
inical letter with the kalends of several years; but
he makes no direct mention of the Solar Cycle or
Golden Number.
I shall now proceed to consider the several cop¬
ies of the Annals of Tighernach which have come
down to us, all of which are unfortunately in an
imperfect state.
Seven copies of these annals are now known to
exist, besides the vellum fragment which I shall
mention presently. Two of them in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford, are described by Dr. O'Conor
in his Stowe Catalogue, and one of these he has
published, without the continuation, in the second
volume of his "Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores,"
a work which we cannot mention without a tribute
of respect to the industry, learning and prtiotism
of the author, and the spirited liberality of the
English nobleman (the late Marquis of Bucking¬
ham, at whose personal expense this wrok, in
four volumes 4to, was printed.
Two copies of Tighernach, one of them in Eng¬
lish characters, are to be found in the collection of
the Royal Irish Academy, and one in the library of
Trinity College. The last, although on paper, is
the most perfect, the oldest and the most original,
of those now in Ireland. In the Trinity College
library there is however also preserved a fragment
consisting of three leaves of an ancient vellum MS.
apparently of Tighernach, though it is now bound
up with the vellum copy of the Annals of Ulster.
Two other but very inferior copies are to be
found in the British Museum. The first of these
(Egerton 104 — Hardiman MS.) is in small folio on
paper, and has evidently been made either from
one of the Stowe copies or from that in Trin. Coll.
Dublin. It is a bad copy in every way. The
handwriting both of the Gaedhlic text and of the
inaccurate translation which accompanies it, are
(as well as my memory serves me) identical with
that of the bad translation mixed with Gaedhlic
words in the first volume of the MS. Annals of
the Four Masters in the library of the R.I.A, —
the first of the two volumes in small folio. This
