[Footnote 275: The War of the Gaedhill with the Gaill; or The Invasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen. The Original Irish Text, edited with Translation and Introduction by James Henthorn Todd, D.D., A.B., M.R.I.A., F.S.A., Senior Fellow T.C.D. Published by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longmans & Co.]
[Footnote 276: Tiernach O'Braoin, Abbot of Clonmacnois, died in 1088. The Annals that bear his name are continued to the fourteenth century. They exhibit great conscientiousness on the part of the writer, who never gives way to Bardic enthusiasm. The other chief books are the Annals of Inisfallen, probably begun by Maol Suthain O'Carroll, secretary to Brian Borumha, the Annals of Boyle, the Annals of Ulster, compiled by Charles Maguire, a learned ecclesiastic at the Isle of Shanat, in Lough Erne. His death occurred in 1493. The Annals begin at A.D. 441 and are continued to 1541. The Annals of Loch Cé, compiled by Brian MacDermot, relate events from the battle of Clontarf to 1590. The Annals of Connacht include all that passed from 1224 to 1562. The Annals of Clonmacnois were translated from the Gaelic into English in 1627, by Connia Mac Egan; the original is not extant.]
The deeply read and zealous editor of the work just quoted below would prefer to have been exercised on some of the others. We quote his own words:
"The editor cannot but regret that this tract, so full of the feelings of clanship,... should have been selected as the first specimen of an Irish chronicle, presented to the public under the sanction of the Master of the Rolls. His own wish and recommendation to his Honor was, that the purely historical chronicles, such as the Annals of Tighernach, the Annals of Ulster, or the Annals of Loch Cé, should have been first undertaken. The two former compilations, it is true, had been already printed [Footnote 277], although with bad translations and wretchedly erroneous topography; and a rule which at that time existed prohibited the Master of the Rolls from publishing any work which, even in part, had been printed before. This rule has since been judiciously rescinded, and it is hoped that his lordship will soon be induced to sanction a series of the chronicles of Ireland, especially the two just alluded to, which, it is not too much to say, are to the history of Ireland and of Scotland what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is to that of England. The Annals of Loch Cé (pr. Kay) belong to a later period. They begin with the battle of Clontarf, and continue the history, with some few gaps, to 1590."
[Footnote 277: The Annals of Ulster are given only to the year 1131. The Dublin MS. extends to 1503. The Chronicum Scotorum is not here mentioned, because it is already on the list of the Master of the Rolls, edited by Mr. W. M. Hennessy.—Note by Rev. Dr. Todd.]
Nothing can be more to the purpose or better worthy of attention than the sequel of this passage.
"Until these and other sources of history are made accessible, it is vain to expect any sober or trustworthy history of Ireland. The old romantic notions of a golden age, so attractive to some minds, must continue to prevail....
"The authors of our popular histories were avowedly ignorant, with scarcely an exception, of the ancient language of Ireland—the language in which the real sources of Irish history are written. It was as if the authors of the history of Rome had been all ignorant of Latin, and the writers of our histories of Greece unable to read Greek. Even this would not, however, fully represent the real state of the case as regards Ireland. Livy and Tacitus, Herodotus and Thucydides, are printed books, and good translations of them exist. But the authorities of Irish history are still for the most part in manuscript, and unpublished, untranslated, and scattered in the public libraries in Dublin, Oxford, and London, as well as on the continent of Europe, Hence our popular histories leave us completely in the dark, and often contain erroneous information. Wherever the Irish names of places or persons are concerned they are at fault. They are entirely silent on the genealogies, relationships, and laws of the clans and their chieftains a subject so essential, to the right understanding of Irish history."
The most popular of our histories is that translated from the Irish of the learned Dr. Geoffry Keating, by Dermod O'Connor, and first published, Westminster, 1726. It was but indifferently done. Dr. Todd gives a decided preference to that lately executed by O'Mahony, and published in America. Dr. Todd gives his readers the pleasant information that two perfect copies of the original Irish, executed by John Torna O'Mulconry, a contemporary of Dr. Keating, are preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.