252
AN GAODHAL.
well as the other Irish manuscripts which accom¬
pany it, and the most part of which were but lent
to the Stowe library, should have passed from the
inaccessible shelves of that once princely establish¬
ment into another asylum equally secure and un¬
approachable to any scholar of the "mere Irish"!
At the time of the advertised sale of the Stowe
library, in 1849, the British Museum made every
effort to become the purchasers, with the consent
and support of the Treasury, through Sir Robert
Peel; but the trustees delayed so long on determi¬
ning what should be done, that the sale took place
privately, and the whole collection was carried off
and incarcerated in a mansion some seventy miles
from London.
The late Sir Robert Inglis and Lord Brougham
were, I believe, most anxious to have this collect¬
ion deposited in the British Museum; but Mr.
(now Lord) Macauley, the Essayist, having been
among the Museum Trustees who examined it, de¬
clared that he saw nothing in the whole worth
purchasing for the Museum, but the correspond¬
ence of Lord Melville, a Scotch, nobleman, on the
American war!
The second original copy of this first part is,
but owing only to its distance from us, as inaccess¬
ible as the one in Ashburnham House. It is in the
Irish College of St. Isidore in Rome. The discov¬
ery of this volume there, and of the important col¬
lection of manuscripts, Gaedhlic and Latin, of
which it forms a part, was made by the late learn¬
ed and lamented Dean Lyons, of Belmullet, in the
County of Mayo, in the years 1842 and 1848. This
learned priest, having occasion to spend some con¬
siderable part of those years in Rome, was request¬
ed at his departure, by some friends of Irish litera¬
ture in Dublin, to examine, should time permit
him, the great literary repositories of the Eternal
City, and to bring, or send home, tracings of any
ancient Gaedhlic manuscripts which he might have
the good fortune to light upon. He accordingly, on
the 1st of June, 1842, wrote home a letter to the
Rev. Dr. Todd and to Dr. O'Donovan apprising
them that he had discovered, in the College of St.
Isadore, several ancient Gaedhlic and Latin manu¬
scripts, which formerly belonged to Ireland and
to Irishmen; and on the 1st of July in the ensuing
year of 1843, he addressed a letter to the same part¬
ies on the same subject. These letters contained ac¬
curate descriptions of the condition and extent of
the Gaedhlic MSS., together with tracings from
their contents, sufficient to enable me to identify
the chief part of them.
Among these MSS. at St Isadore's, there was
found an autograph of the first part of the Annals
of the Four Masters, coming down to the year
1169, with the "Approbations" and all the prefato¬
ry matter. This is the only autograph of the first
part now known, save that formely at Stowe; and
both being inaccessible at the time of the publica¬
tion of the whole work a few years ago, the learn¬
ed and able editor, Dr. O'Donovan, was obliged to
use Dr. O'Conor's inaccurate version, only correct¬
ing it by modern copies here, as may be seen in
his introduction.
The novel and important discovery of this col¬
lection excited so great a degree of interest in Dub¬
lin at the time, that a subscription for their pur¬
chase, should it be found practicable, was freely
and warmly talked of.
Upon the return of Dr. Lyons to Ireland, Dr.
Todd opened a correspondence with him as to his
views of the possibility of the authorities in Rome
consenting to the sale of these MSS. Dr. Lyons's
answer was encouraging, and in order to prepare
him for bringing the matter before the proper par¬
ties, he requested that I should draw up a short
paper upon their contents, the importance of hav¬
ing them here at home, and the intrinsic value of
the whole according to the rate at which Gaedhlic
manuscripts were estimated and sold in Dublin at
the time.
This paper, or letter, was transmitted to Rome
at the time by Dr. Lyons; but his own lamented
death occurring shortly after, the correspondence
through that channel was interrupted, and the fam¬
ine having set in about the same time, the spirit of
the country was checked, objects of more immediate
importance pressed themselves on the minds of men
and the subject was forgotten for a time. There
are, howevr, in Dublin a fow patriotic men, who,
within the last two years, have offered a handsome
sum of money from their private purses for those
manuscripts for public purposes; but they seem
not to have been able to convey their proposal
through an eligible channel, and so no satisfactory
result has followed their laudable endeavours.
I may perhaps be pardoned for adding here, that
the short catalogue of the St. Isadore manuscripts
which I drew up for Dean Lyons, and which he
transmitted to Rome, was subsequently published
without acknowledgment, by the Rev. J. Donovan
in the third volume of his "Ancient and Modern
Rome."
To resume. It will be remembered that in Mi¬
chael O'Clery’s address to Fergal O'Gara he pays
him, along with many others, the following com¬
pliment :—
"For every good that will result from this book
in giving light to the people in general, it is to you
that thanks should be given, there should exist no
wonder or surprise, jealousy, or envy at any good
that you do, for you are of the race of Eber Mac
Mileadh", etc., etc.
On this passage the editor, Dr. Donovan, com¬
ments unnecessarily, I think, in the following
words, —
"If O'Donnell were in the country at the time,
he ought to have felt great envy and jealousy that
the Four Masters should have committed this work
which treats of the O'Donnells more than of any
family, to the world under the name and patronage
of any of the rival race of Oilioll Oluim, much less
to so petty a chieftain of that race as O'Gara. This
will appear from the Contention of the Bards."
Nothing, however, appears more obvious from
the Contention of the Bards, than (as I have alrea¬
dy shown and as is proved by Annluain Mac
Ægan's acknowledgment) that the northern Bards
were worsted in the contest; and nothing has been
put forward to show O'Donnell's superior claims to
the patronage of a historical work, but that his
own family figures more conspicuously in it than
any other of the nation. This argument, however,
on inquiry, will scarcely be found to hold good,
and before I pass on it may perhaps be worth while
to answer it at once by referring to some few statis¬
tics of family names occurring in these Annals.
(To be continued)
Will the reader please be particular in explain¬
ing the quotation from Archbishop Trench to Irish
patriots, and to see how they will feel!
