Thus you see that he could not, by possibility, be on the same theatre with St. Abham; while the popular tradition is still substantially true which connects his name with the erection of the Round Towers!
The Church festivals themselves, in our Christian calendar, are but the direct transfers from the Tuath-de-danaan ritual. Their very names in Irish are identically the same as those by which they were distinguished by that earlier race. If therefore, surprise has heretofore been excited at the conformity observable between our Church institutions and those of the East, let it in future subside at the explicit announcement that Christianity, with us, was but the revival of a religion imported amongst us, many ages before, by the Tuath-de-danaans from the East, and not from any chimerical inundation of Greek missionaries—a revival upon which their hearts were longingly riveted, and which Fiech himself, the pupil of St. Patrick, and bishop of Sletty, unconsciously registers in the following couplet, viz.:—
“Tuatha Heren, tarcaintais
Dos nicfead sith laithaith nua.”[579]
That is,—
The Budhists of Irin prophesied
That new times of peace would come.
What kind of peace, you ask? Is it of deliverance from their Scythian oppressors? No, but that spiritual tranquillity, such as they enjoyed before, and at which even the angels of heaven rejoiced, while announcing the tidings to man[580]—
“And sweet, and with rapture o’erflowing,
Was the song from that multitude heard,
Who their heav’n for a season foregoing,
To second the Angel appear’d.
‘All glory,’ the anthem resounding,
‘To God in the highest,’ began;
And the chant was re-echoed, responding,
‘Peace on earth, loving-kindness to man.’”[581]
You will remember that the Scriptures themselves record, how that the wise men of the East foresaw this epoch; and “Lo, the star which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.”[582]
Is it therefore to be wondered at that our Tuath-de-danaans, who were their brethren, should equally anticipate it?
Yes, from the commencement of time, and through all the changes of humanity, God had always witnesses to the truth in this nether world.