AN GAODHAL.
107
usurpations of foreigners. May God forgive them
their sins. Domine ne status nobis hoc peccatum.
This extract is taken from the book of Kilronan,
which has the approbation of the Four Masters
annexed to it, by me Cathal O'Conor (of Belana¬
gare), 2 August, 1728."
It is very plain from the style of this article, in
the Gaedhlic of Mr. O'Conor of Belanagare, that
it was an abstract of the original record of this ev¬
ent, made by himself, and this will appear more
decidedly from the following translation of the en¬
tire article, made by me from the copy of the book
which he had then before him, which he calls the
Annals of Kilonan, and which we have now, un¬
der the name of the Annals of Connacht.
"A.D. 1464. Tadhg O'Conor, half-king of Con¬
nacht, mortuus est on Saturday after first Lady
Day in Autumn, et sepultus in Roscommon, so
honorably and nobly by the Sil Muiredhaigh, such
as no king before him, of the race of Cathal of the
Red Hand, for a long time before had been. Where
their cavalry and gallowglasses were in full armor
around the corpse of the high king in the same
state as if they were going to battle; where their
green levies were in battle array, and the men of
learning and poetry, and the women of the Sil
Muiredhaidh were in countless flocks following
him. And countless were the alms of the church
on that day for the [good of the] corpse [soul] of
of the high king, of cows, and horses, and money.
And he had seen in a vision Michael [the Archan¬
gel] leading him to judgment."
The Annals of Loch Ce, which have been erro¬
neously called the Annals of Kilronan, dispose of
this article in three lines, recording merely the
death, at this year, of "Tadhg the son of Torlogh
Roe O'Conor, half-king of Connacht, a man the
most intelligent and talented in Connacht, in his
own time."
It was from this man's mausoleum that the stones
with sculptured gallowglasses were procured for
the Antiquarian Department of the late Great Ir¬
ish Exhibition (1853). They have been again very
properly restored to their original place; but sure¬
ly some individual or society ought to procure casts
of them for our public museums.
And here, before we pass from this remarkable
extract, can we fail to be struck by the feeling
terms in which the venerable Charles O'Conor
sighs for the fallen fortunes of his house and fam¬
ily, and sighs the more, as their truthfulness to
each other was the cause of their decay and of
their subjection, and that of their country, to a
comparatively contemptible foreign foe? This is
a singular admission on the part of the best Irish
historian of his time, — but it is a fact capable of
positive of positive historical demonstration, even
from these very annals, — that the downfall of the
Irish monarchy and of Irish independence was ow¬
ing more to the barbarous selfishness of the house
of O'Conor of Connacht, and their treachery tow¬
ards each other, with all the disastrous consequen¬
ces of that treachery to the country at large, than
to any other cause either within or without the
kingdom of England.
It must be very clear, from the extract we have
quoted from Mr. O'Conor, that the Annals of Kil¬
ronan, from which he made it, — the very book
mentioned by the Four Masters, — was in existence
in some condition, and in his possession, so late as
the year 1728. And as Mr. O'Conor's books were
not scattered during his own long life, nor until
the chief part of them were carried to Stowe by his
grand son, the late Rev. Charles O'Conor, it can
scarcely admit of doubt that the vellum book,
which the latter writer describes as part of this
collection in the Stowe catalogue, must be the book
of Kilronan from which the former made the ex¬
tract.
Those Annals, according to the Testimonium to
the Annals of the Four Masters, extended from the
year 900 to the year 1563. How the first three hun¬
dred years of these annals could have disappeared,
we have now no means of ascertaining ; but it is
clear that they were missing at the time that O'¬
Gorman made his transcript, else he would have
copied them with the remainder of the book.
The following notices, in English, appear in the
copy of these annals in the Royal Irish Academy,
in the handwriting, I think, of Theophilus O'Flan¬
nagan.
On the fly-leaf of the first volume (there are two
volumes, we find this entry. — "The Annals of Con¬
nacht, transcribed from the original in the possess¬
ion of Charles O'Conor of Belanagar, Esq., of the
house of O'Conor Dun, at the expense of the Che¬
valier Thomas O'Gorman, Anno Domini 1783."
Of the year 1378 there remains but the date and
one line, with the following notice, in the same
English hand — "N.B. The remainder of this Ann¬
al, together with the years 1379, to 1384, are want¬
ing to the Annals of Connacht, all to the following
fragment of the year 1834, but may be filled from
the Four Masters, who have transcribed the above
Annals."
Again, at what appears to be the end of the year
1393, the following notice is found in the same En¬
glish hand, — "N.B. The years 1394 to 1397, are
wanting in the original, but may be filled from the
Four Masters."
And, again, at the end of the year 1544, we find
this notice in the same English hand, — "N.B.
Here end the Annals of Connacht, the following
annal (1562) has peen inserted by a different hand.'
The first of these notices is sufficient to show
that this was the same book from which Charles
O'Conor made the extract at the year 1464, and
says that that was the Book of Kilronan, with the
approbation of the Four Masters appended to it;
and it appears from the third or last notice, that
not only had the first three hundred years disapp¬
eared from the book, but also the years from 1544
to 1563, the last year in it, according to the Four
Masters.
It may, however, be doubted whether the Four
Masters did not count the years in this book, from
the first to the last, without pausing to notice any
defect, or number of defects, in it, and that the
last year of it in their time was the year 1563. We
believe the Annals of Senait McManus, now known
as the Annals of Ulster, had, when in their hands,
two deficiencies, one of them greater than the de¬
fect here between 1544 and 1562, and that they
took no notice whatever of it.
At what period local annals came to receive pro¬
vincial names — such as the Annals of Ulster, the
Annal of Connacht, etc. — I cannot discover. Such
names, as far as I can recollect, are only found in
the works of Ussher, Ware, and their followers;
the Four Masters do not distinguish by provincial
names any of the old chronicles from which they
compiled, and indeed it would be absurd if they
had done so, as it might happen that any or each
of the provinces might have several books of ann¬
als, none of which would be exclusively devoted
