Dissertations on the History of Ireland. To which is subjoined a Dissertation on the Irish Colonies established in Britain. With some remarks on MacPherson's translation of Fingal and Temora

Front matter

DISSERTATIONS ON THE HISTORY OF IRELAND, IN WHICH AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE ORIGIN, GOVERNMENT, LETTERS, SCIENCES, RELIGION, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, OF THE ANCIENT INHABITANT*. TO WHICri ARE ADDED, A DISSERTATION ON THE IRISH COLONIES ESTABLISHED IN BRITAIN, WITH HOME REMARKS ON MR. MAC PHERSON' S TRANSLATION OF FINGAL AND TEMORA. BY THE LATE C. O'CONOR, OF BALENAGAR THE THIRD ED1TIOS. BIT A 1'loUS RACE; WITH NEARER VIEW CONSIDER OllK AFFAIRS. VIRG1J.. DUBLIN : PRINTED BY J. CHRISTIE, 16, ROSS-LANE. 1S12.

Preface

. THE notice, which some learned men were pleased to take of the following Essays, in the first draught, encouraged the Writer to offer a second, as soon as new materials were put into his hands, for additions and emendations. He offers it with the greater confidence, as several, who perused the former endeavour, seemed to have received some satisfaction from the account he gave, aud the proofs he brought, of the early use of letters in this island. Were that a probable, and much more, a real fact, it would extend to a more interesting inquiry, than what is pro duced by bare curiosity; it would prompt to a desire of being informed further, whether that art, which was reserved as a state mystery in the neighbouring Celtic countries, might not have been made subservient to philosophical uses, that is, to the improvement of the human mind and manners in our own?

It would be required, what this improvement was, in kind; to what degree it was carried; and, finally, whether the cultivation, whatever it was, can be dated from an ear lier era, than that which introduced the Roman language, with the Christian religion, into this country ? Such demands are reasonable, and were made. The first hints have been communicated by b TREFACE. taU Dr. Samuel Johnson, a gentleman not more to be valued for great extent of knowledge and genius, than for the honour he has done, and the great service he has rendered his native country, by bringing most nations more intimately acquainted with its language and literature. Far from joining in the current prejudice against the present subject, or oppressing the writer, who undertook it, with censure, even where censure was justly due, he approved of an endeavour to revive (as far as they can be usefully revived) the ancient language and literature of a sister isle, " which was once the prime seat of learning in alt Christendom."* The smallest appjj^ation from such a man, was sufficient with the dissertator, to overlook many discouragements, which lay in his way; and yet, his having it not in his power to consult some old manuscripts, scattered at present through various countries, rendered a compliance with Dr. Johnson's desires, a desperate undertaking.

The sense of this, made him a long time irresolute. Some worthy persons, however, who have supplied him with new ma terials, enabled him to resume the subject. From these, and a more careful review of his former collections, he has extracted the following Es says; and it is obvious, that, with more materials of the same kind, he would have succeeded bet ter. Such as it is, we are in hope, that the present endeavour will convey some useful idea of the origin, improvement, and decline of govern ment and arts, in this island: such an idea, I * Prideaux's Connect, of the Old and New Test. voL 3. p. 34L

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. V mean, as may excite the industry of an abler hand, when public spirit may co-operate in pro curing faithful copies of our dispersed old chronicles; or when private spirit may be sufficient, of itself, to examine the originals, in their several foreign repositories. The introduction of letters into an uncivilized country, doth not infer the cultivation of the human mind therein. False knowledge may be propagated, or none of any kind may be commu nicated. In ancient Gaul, letters served no uses, but those of intrigue and piivate correspondence among men in power. The bulk of the people were strangers to the art; and thus it was in Cæsar's, and probably long before, as well as long after his time. Among a fierce and warlike people, ignorance of letters is never considered as any disadvantage.

Reflection, wholly employed about the grosser objects, becomes unfit for toil ing in the finer abstractions, which lead to know ledge. It is by early discipline, and the force of education alone, that such, or indeed any men, are brought acquainted with the intellectual powers; and it is only when they take a delight in the exertion of those powers, that letters become the instruments of knowledge. The uses, to which letters have been turned in Ireland, so differently from the practice of other Celtic countries, was not owing to a more happy local genius among its inhabitants; their heavy climate, and other physical causes, led rather to a slower progress in intellectual researches: but it was owing to a few great men, particularly to one great genius, who set the example, that the VI

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. nation was, in a manner, new molded. This was Ollamii Fodhla, who reigned long, and who, to the authority of a great monarch, joined the influence of a great philosopher, in forming the minds of the national youth. It was he, who planned, regulated, and endowed the college of the learned in Teamor; laid down a new system of education; and made this the model of the se veral provincial schools, for cultivating the arts intellectual and military. The particular regu lations he made, and the documents he gave, are little known at this distance of time; but may, in part, be learned, from the spirit and operation of subsequent institutions. They were revived, on the erection of the house of Eamania, and the Succession of Hugony the Great, whose son, Roiney Rosgadhach, has been celebrated, in all ages, for his jurisprudence.

These arts have declined soon after, during the contentions of unworthy princes, whose names are still preserved. In the reign of Concovar Mac Nessa over Ulster, the national sciences were again re-established. In his time, and through his patronage, the phi losophy aud jurisprudence of the nation, were committed to the Taibhle Filea, or wooden tables of the learned, as they were called. Judicial proceedings, subjected before but too much, to the arbitrary decisions of the judges, were now ascertained by written records; and these regulations were made some time before the commencement of the Christian era. This account bears the mark of authenticity : all our remains of an cient history, are constant and invariable in the representation. The Ollamhs or Fileas (the dot-

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. VII tors of every species of lettered science) were, as is well known, an honorable order in the state, and admitted into the intermediate legislative department, between the princes and subordinate freemen. To these sages was intrusted, the edu cation of the national chiefs; and, in some con junctures, their order has been reformed, but never abolished; they were supported, respected, and but seldom disturbed, through the remaining times, between Concovar Mac Ncssa, and those which introduced the Christian religion. Such as oppose nothing but mere negative arguments to this representation, have their materials very cheap : but before they can shake the truth of facts, supported by the constant manners and customs of a nation, as well as by written accounts, uncontroverted through a long series of ages, they must bring some better proofs, than such as arise out of bare scepticism alone, or the conjectures, of which historical scepticism is, in particular, so eminently fruitful.

Why such a subject should remain so long disregarded among ourselves, may appear strange; and yet it is far from being unaccountable. Ano ther spirit prevailed in the last century. The learned primate Usher studied some of our old writings, and, from many facts, which he preserved, we find, that his labours were well re warded. His learned friend, Sir James Ware, made noble collections for the history of his native country; and yet, through the misfortune of understanding but little of its language, and meeting with no skilful interpreter, until the last vear of his life, what he has published on the

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. antiquities of Ireland, is very lame and defective, in many particulars. The information chiefly to be sought from the records of ancient time, and for which alone they are worth examining, is wanting. In facts not difficult to ascertain, he is not seldom mistaken; and his mistakes naturally produced his groundless conjectures. Keating's work is a most injudicious collection; the historical part is degraded by the fa bulous, with which it abounds. Keating was one of those laborious readers, who, in making ex tracts, do it without selection or discernment; and such works (as the judicious Mac-Firbis* observes) ought never to be published. An easy flowing style distinguishes this writer; and even that is debased by many vulgarisms in language. Mr. O'Flaherty succeeded to Ware and Keat ing, in these researches.

His technical chrono logy is the most accurate, that any ancient nor thern nation can boast. He computed, chiefly, by the generations of the Heremonian monarchs; by the duration of their reigns; and, particularly, by the successions of the kings of Eamania; taking as much from Flan of Bute, Eochy O'Flin, G.Coemhan, and G. Moduda, as con tributed to support the chronological canons he * In a letter to Dr. Lynch, the author of Cambrensis Eversus: — Mr. Mac Firbis's Account of the principal English and Irish Families of Ireland, has been lately purchased for the lord Jocelyn. Some twenty pages of the work, which have b'een long since injuriously cut out of the volume, have fallen into the hands of the writer of the following disserta tions, and shall be transmitted to his lordship, that the work of so eminent an antiquarian, all written by his own h,and5 may be restored to its original integrity.

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. IX established, on the successions and genealogies of our princes. This accuracy ( for so it may be called) furnishes an additional proof, that the annals of the nation were, from a very early age, committed to writing. Blind tradition, or ulte rior invention, could never, in ages of simplicity, and so distant from each other, concur in so many marks of authenticity, as Mr. O'Flaherty has collected, for the ascertainment of his chro nology. It must, however, be confessed, that through the mistakes of transcribers, (which are ever greatest in all numerical serieses, ) and through some (perhaps) wilful interpolations in the genealogical lines, Mr. O'Flaherty could not avoid falling into anachronisms; and, in such a case, one superinduces another. It is only when he comes to the time of Tuathal Teachtmar, that he approaches nearest to certainty.

That monarch's reign constitutes a new era of accuracy, in history and chronology. Mr. O'Flaherty promised to give us the annals of the christian ages, down to the dissolution of the monarchy; but, through the many discou ragements, which intervened, that work never appeared. We have seen but a small part of it, in his own hand-writing, and found in the study of his great friend and patron, colonel Terence Mac Donagh, of Creevagh, in the county of Sligo. Should the whole be still preserved, it would be a valuable acquisition to the public. Several of this excellent antiquarian's papers have been dispersed into private hands, since his death; and some have been lately discovered in X

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. Galway, of which the writer of the following Dissertations has been refused the perusal. He can, therefore, pronounce no judgment on the contents. He can only express his apprehensions for the learned author's reputation; lest any of his loose papers (for several such we have seen and possess) should be offered for publication, without receiving his own last corrections. Many remains of our ancient history have been lately discovered. From the account communicated this year by Dr. Swinton, professor of oriental languages in Oxford, the Irish collection in the Bodleian library, is very considerable. The manuscripts, collected by that celebrated antiquarian, Mr. Lluid, are in the hands of Sir John Seabright, and accessible, through the in dulgence of the worthy possessor. Several manuscripts of the Chandos library, have been reco vered also: and we have the pleasure of inform ing the public, that, among all these collections, none can excel that of Trinity- College here in our own country; as it has been lately enriched by the Ulster, Clonmacnoise, and Donegal An nals;* with several curious tracts from the late Dr. Fergus's library.

The principals of the Uni versity have, on this occasion, exerted a spirit worthy of them, and of the seat of learning over which they so worthily preside. Nor must the particular attention of Dr. Leland, to this point, be concealed; as it was to bis care we owe it, that these old original chronicles have not again fallen into private hands. He, who has put so * Commonly called the Annals of the Four Masters.

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. XI much of the ancient literature of his native country in the way of beiug preserved, has con ferred a new obligation on the public; an obli gation indeed due to it, as it has done so much justice to his own excellent compositions. From such a spirit as we have seen exerted, much may be expected: it promises, what the late Dr. O'Sullivan intended to propose, some public establishment for preserving the Celtic dialects, once spoken in these islands, and as much of the contents of our old writings as may be found useful. Without some establishment of this kind, it is much to be apprehended, that those writings, through ignorance of the language, will be lost to posterity. Like the weapons of the an cients, in a royal armory, they will barely remain to be looked at; never to be taken down for use.

The mention of Dr. O'Sullivan, reminds us o£ the greatest loss the public could sustain, relatively to our ancient literature. After entering into the genius, and conquering all the difficulties, of our old language, he made noble collec tions of Irish law placits and annals; which, some time before his death, he was explaining by a literal translation into the Latin tongue, and which he intended as a legacy to our university library. To that learned and worthy man, the Writer of the following Dissertations is indebted, for considerable corrections in the topographical section; and the public is a loser, by his not being at leisure to make corrections in every other. It is a pleasure to own such obligations; and the acknowledgment is due, in a particular manc

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. ner, to the Earl of Moira, who supplied the Writer with some curious and valuable manu scripts, from the county of Antrim. When under takings, on this subject, are equally encouraged by persons of his lordship's rank, it will not be long a reproach, that this is the only country in Europe, whose history is slighted at home, and unknown every where else. To one, who fell into so unbeaten a track, nothing can be more gratifying, than the countenance and encouragement of men, whose own writings will edify future, as they do the present times. In this number, the Writer must justly place E. Burke, Esq. representative in the British parliament for Wendover: and he is under par ticular obligations to the learned and worthy Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, who accidentally perused some of the sheets, as they came from the press; and who, to his approbation, has joined acts of friendship, which can never be forgotten.

Among other instances, he supplied the Writer with Irish comments on the aphorisms of Hippocrates, written in the thirteenth century ; and, though such works do not contribute to cast any lights on our ancient history; yet they remain as an additional proof of our attention to the sciences, even in the days of anarchy. In truth, our people were in no time savages ; what Mr. Hume represents them to have been. Their barbarism, in later ages, was owing to a civil state, the worst that can possibly exist; but the force of manners did, in some degree, remedy the evil ; nor were they greater barbarians, than some of their neighbour-nations.

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. XIII To the Rev. Dr. Warner, of Barnes, in Surry, the Writer owes the strongest acknowledgments, for setting him right, in some parts of this under taking, and reminding him in others, of mistakes which he committed in the first draught of it. That learned gentleman has already published one volume of the History of Ireland, from the earliest records of time, to the English invasion. In that, as in other works, he has given proofs of his historical abilities: and it is with great satis faction we can inform the public, that he is now employed in writing the History of the Rebellion, in Ireland, during the reign of Charles I. continued to the final settlement under Charles II. It is the most interesting period in our whole his tory; and as the author has collected abundant materials for so important a work, we can have no doubt but that he will meet with sufficient encouragement in both kingdoms.

Far from omitting his obligations to Dr. Curry, the Writer of the Dissertations acknowledges them in the most grateful manner. He has expe rienced, and felt, the advantage of the most free communication with so warm and learned a friend; of whose instructions he availed himself, and whose historical collections were, at all times, open to him. To Mr.O'More, of Ballina, in the county of Kildare, he is obliged, for some judicious remarks upon our Eric and Tanist Laws; and it is no small part of his happiness to possess the friendship of a gentleman, who inherits endowments, over which fortune can exert no power; the le-

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. gacies of paternal and maternal ancestors, who have adorned the annals of this island. To conclude: if the substance of what is ad vanced in the following sheets, be supported by the proper proofs; the subject, that of a lettered and thinking people, secluded many ages from any communication with the lettered nations on the Continent, cannot be unimportant. — To know man through the several revolutions of govern ment, opinion and manners; to survey him on every stage, where intellectual nature has been improved, or depraved, by education; to con sider him under the influence of climate, or tyranny of custom; in a word, to detect him truly, where philosophical theory may mistake or misrepresent him, is important, most certainly. To get through so intricate a maze, no clue can be more useful, than that which history puts into our hands; and the idea lately propagated, that the records of these Northern countries, before the resurrection of letters in the sixteenth century, are not worthy of attention, cannot be supported.

It is a strain of affectation, and one of those paradoxes, which, by degrading the judg ment of a great genius, keeps inferior abilities in countenance. Little more need be added. The observations on the poems of Fingal and Temora, stand in need of no apology ; as this subject on the ancient Scotish history, is still so little known to the public, and as the idea, propagated by the trans lator of those poems, that they are compositions (for writings they are not pretended to be) of

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. XV the third century, would affect the credit due to our ancient chronicles, which are absolutely silent about Fingal, and the kingdom wherein it is pretended he reigned. They are, in truth, the compositions of later times, and would come better recommended, by some attention to our ancient manners and customs. Historical merit they have none; and it was proper to show, that the translator built upon no better foundation, than his predecessors of the Lowlands, whose hypothesis, after a warm controversy of more than a hundred years, has been finally aban doned, as indefensible. After the following sheets were printed off, a friend expressed a wish, that a few more expla natory notes had been inserted, for the use of such foreigners as might have a curiosity to pe ruse the work. The truth is, when we treat of matters familiar to ourselves at home, we rather fear an excess, than any deficiency, in our mar ginal illustrations.

We think it impertinent to explain what is too well known to the generality of readers; without considering, that some are strangers to the whole matter, or that all may be so, perhaps, in another age. Upon the whole, however, the Writer trusts, that his omissions, in this particular, are but few and inconsiderable. It remains only to inform his readers, in general, that, to avoid the trouble of frequent references and quotations, most of what he says of the Christian ages, is extracted principally from the Annals of the Four Masters.