old Irish gentleman, our common friend, who kept up the hospitality of his ancestors, and shewed how this time began to decay; and Roderic O'Connor, who came to the crown, A.D. 1168, was the last king of Ireland. Our Henry II., got the kingdom A.D. 1172, by two means; one of which was a grant the Pope made of it to him; who was allowed by the natives to be supreme Lord of the island in temporals, and the nobility had by commission resigned it to him, after the death of Brien Boiroimhe. The other mean, and what effectually did the work, was the king of Leinster's joining with Strangwell, who was at the head of the English forces, and had married that king's daughter. An old chronicle says she was the most beautiful woman upon earth of her time, and very learned: but inferior nevertheless in beauty and learning to the six princesses we read of in the Psalter of Tarah, who were fair beyond all mortals that ever lived, and wonderful in the extent of their knowledge; to wit The princess Mac Diarmuid. The princess Mac Faolain. The princess O'Flaherty. These six were Druidesses, says the Psalter of Tarah. they lived, when Cormac Mac Cuillenan, the Generous, from whose house he descended; was king of Munster and archbishop of Cashel in the year 913*. By the way, reader, let me tell you, that from this same Psalter of Tarah, I wrote out one of the finest and most improving love stories that ever I read. It is called 'the Adventure of Terlagh Mac Shain and the beautiful Gara O'Mulduin; which happened in the reign of Cormac Ulfada, king of Ireland, in the year of salvation 213, that Faon Maccumhail, commonly called Fian Maccul, the mighty champion, beat the Picts, and brought off among other prisoners, the beautiful Ciarnuit, daughter to the king of the Picts, whom Cormac Ulfada took for his concubine.' This story is likewise more shortly told in The Red Book of Mac Eogane, a very valuable old Irish manuscript: and from both those books I will give my reader the best part of this adventure as soon as I can see a proper place to bring it in. *This Cormac Cuillenan wrote the famous Psalter of Cashel, a very extraordinary and valuable book, which he composed from ancient poems of the bards, who thus wrote their history, and from venerable records, as this king and prelate declares in his will. The clause is this My psalter, which preserves the ancient records and monuments of my native country, which are transcribed with great fidelity, I leave to Ronal Cashel, to be preserved to after-times and ages yet to come." There is another remarkable clause in this great man's will, to 66 There was no end of eating and drinking and the famous DOWNE FALVEY played on the harp. For wit, "My soul for mercy I commit to heaven; my body leave to dust and rottenness." There is not a word of any saint in it; and of consequence, there was no saintworship then in Ireland. Cormac wrote his will the day before he fought the bloody battle of Maghailbe with the king of Leinster, and therein fell. It begins in this manner : "Summon'd away by death, which I perceive I find that short will be my life and reign: I do bequeath &c. My coat of mail of bright and polish'd steel To whom I give it; and my golden chain My golden vestment for most sacred use, a day and a night we sat to it by candle-light, without shirts or clothes on; naked excepting that we "to Now from this antique piece verbally translated, I think it is evident, that the kings of the four provinces of Ireland were not such poor and ignorant chiefs as they are generally imagined to be; and of consequence, that one of the four to whom the other three did homage, and who was therefore called the king of Ireland, was always a potent prince, and could do great matters, when they were all united. This consideration, I fancy, and the address let me add of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, and of Lanfranc, archbishop of the same see, Mortogh O'Brien king of Ireland, and Terlagh O'Brien king of Ireland, Moriardacho Glorioso and Terdeluacho Magnifico. To the most magnificent. Terlagh O'Brien, king of Ireland, our benediction," &c. as you may read them at large in Usher's Primordia* ought to give some credit to O'Flaherty's Ogygia, Keating's History, and Mac Curtins' Annals; which those writers really took from very ancient records, and principally from the very valuable manuscripts, called the Psalters of Cashel and Tarah. What the Psalter of Cashel was I have told you, reader; and as to the Psalter of Tarah, the history of it is this. * These letters were written by the English archbishops to the Irish kings, Turlogh and Murtogh, in the years 1098 and 1110. had our breeches and shoes and stockings on; and I drank so much Burgundy in that time, that the sweat ran of a red colour down my body; and my senses were so disordered, that when we agreed to ride out for a couple of hours to take a little air, I leaped my horse into a dreadful quarry, and in the descent was thrown into a large deep water that was in a part of the frightful bottom, and by that means saved my life. When I came above water I swam very easily out of the pit, and walked up the low side of the quarry as sober as if I had not drank a glass. This is a fact, whatever the critics may say of the thing. All I can say to it is my hour was not come. Having dined, and shot a bustard that weighed forty pounds, I went on again, the course north On a tract of land called Tarah, that was taken from the province of Leinster, and added to the county of Meath, stood the largest of the four vast palaces of the kings of Ireland, and at that grand fabric there was a triennial meeting of the states of the kingdom, called the royal assembly of Tarah. There they enacted laws, examined the ancient chronicles and records, and purged them from all false and spurious relations, settled genealogies, and considered noble exploits. All the things that received the assembly's approbation were registered, and transcribed into the royal records, and they called this journal the Psalter of Tarah. |