[366] Lough Lein is written Loch Leighinn in an old MS., and the natives of the district explain the word as the Lake of Learning.
[367] There is no foundation for O’Halloran’s statement that Mungret was founded before the time of St. Patrick.
[368] Aubrey de Vere.
[369] The Feast of Knock Cae.
[370] On this passage Dr. M‘Carthy has kindly sent me the following note:—
That is: do not refuse what is offered, but dispense what you do not require for your own needs: ask not, but accept what is proffered, without being vainglorious thereat, or without concealing the benefaction (in order to hoard it without incurring the censure of being avaricious).
The metre is heptasyllabic, each line ending in a word of three syllables. Its name is Casbairdne.
The chief Old-Irish form is ragabae==ro-a-gabae: that is, the relative pronoun a (them) is placed (infixed) between the verbal particle ro and the verb—them you shall accept. A mediæval forger could not have coined an expression of the kind.
Plainly, the quatrain embodied a rule of the monastery of Nessan; for most of their regulations were embodied in verse, being thus easier to be remembered.
[371] Nessan is expressly named amongst the saints of the Second Order; if, indeed, it be Nessan of Mungret who is referred to.