An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800. Mary Frances Cusack
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with each other [one with another] all; The boundaries of each brave province, From a cantred up to a great chieftaincy.
From this valuable extract we obtain a clear idea of the importance and the subject of the famous Saltair, and a not less clear knowledge of the admirable legal and social institutions by which Erinn was then governed.
The CIN OF DROM SNECHTA is quoted in the Book of Ballymote, in support of the ancient legend of the antediluvian occupation of Erinn by the Lady Banbha, called in other books Cesair (pron. "kesar"). The Book of Lecan quotes it for the same purpose, and also for the genealogies of the chieftains of the ancient Rudrician race of Ulster. Keating gives the descent of the Milesian colonists from Magog, the son of Japhet, on the authority of the Cin of Drom Snechta, which, he states, was compiled before St. Patrick's mission to Erinn.[9] We must conclude this part of our subject with a curious extract from the same work, taken from the Book of Leinster: "From the Cin of Drom Snechta, this below. Historians say that there were exiles of Hebrew women in Erinn at the coming of the sons of Milesius, who had been driven by a sea tempest into the ocean by the Tirrén Sea. They were in Erinn before the sons of Milesius. They said, however, to the sons of Milesius [who, it would appear, pressed marriage on them], that they preferred their own country, and that they would not abandon it without receiving dowry for alliance with them. It is from this circumstance that it is the men that purchase wives in Erinn for ever, whilst it is the husbands that are purchased by the wives throughout the world besides."[10] The SALTAIR OF CASHEL was compiled by Cormac Mac Cullinan King of Munster, and Archbishop of Cashel. He was killed in the year 903. This loss of the work is most painful to the student of the early history of Erinn. It is believed that the ancient compilation known as Cormac's Glossary, was compiled from the interlined gloss to the Saltair; and the references therein to our ancient history, laws, mythology, and social customs, are such as to indicate the richness of the mine of ancient lore. A copy was in existence in 1454, as there is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (Laud, 610) a copy of such portions as could be deciphered at the time. This copy was made by Shane O'Clery for Mac Richard Butler.
The subjoined list of the lost books is taken from O'Curry's MS. Materials, page 20. It may be useful to the philologist and interesting to our own people, as a proof of the devotion to learning so early manifested in Erinn:—
"In the first place must be enumerated again the Cuilmenn; the Saltair of Tara; the Cin Droma Snechta; the Book of St. Mochta; the Book of Cuana; the Book of Dubhdaleithe; and the Saltair of Cashel. Besides these we find mention of the Leabhar buidhe Sláine or Yellow Book of Slane; the original Leabhar na h-Uidhre; the Books of Eochaidh O'Flannagain; a certain book known as the Book eaten by the poor people in the desert; the Book of Inis an Duin; the Short Book of St. Buithe's Monastery (or Monasterboice); the Books of Flann of the same Monastery; the Book of Flann of Dungeimhin (Dungiven, co. Derry); the Book of Dun da Leth Ghlas (or Downpatrick); the Book of Doiré (Derry); the Book of Sabhall Phatraic (or Saull, co. Down); the Book of the Uachongbhail (Navan, probably); the Leabhar dubh Molaga, or Black Book of St. Molaga; the Leabhar buidhe Moling, or Yellow Book of St. Moling; the Leabhar buidhe Mhic Murchadha, or Yellow Book of Mac Murrach; the Leabhar Arda Macha, or Book of Armagh (quoted by Keating); the Leabhar ruadh Mhic Aedhagain, or Red Book of Mac Aegan; the Leabhar breac Mhic Aedhagain, or Speckled Book of Mac Aegan; the Leabhar fada Leithghlinne, or Long Book of Leithghlinn, or Leithlin; the Books of O'Scoba of Cluain Mic Nois (or Clonmacnois); the Duil Droma Ceata, or Book of Drom Ceat; and the Book of Clonsost (in Leix, in the Queen's County)."
Happily, however, a valuable collection of ancient MSS. are still preserved, despite the "drowning" of the Danes, and the "burning" of the Saxon. The researches of continental scholars are adding daily to our store; and the hundreds of Celtic MSS., so long entombed in the libraries of Belgium and Italy, will, when published, throw additional light upon the brightness of the past, and, it may be, enhance the glories of the future, which we must believe are still in reserve for the island of saints and sages.[11]
(A) MS. in the "Domhnach Airgid," [R.I.A. (temp. St. Patrick, circa A.D. 430.)]
(B) MS. in the "Cathach," (6th century MS attributed to St. Colum Cillé)
The list of works given above are supposed by O'Curry to have existed anterior to the year 1100. Of the books which Keating refers to in his History, written about 1630, only one is known to be extant—the Saltair-na-Rann, written by Aengus Céile Dé.
The principal Celtic MSS. which are still preserved to us, may be consulted in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. The latter, though founded at a much later period, is by far the more extensive, if not the more important, collection. Perhaps, few countries have been so happy as to possess a body of men so devoted to its archæology, so ardent in their preservation of all that can be found to illustrate it, and so capable of elucidating its history by their erudition, which, severally and collectively, they have brought to bear on every department of its ethnology. The collection in Trinity College consists of more than 140 volumes, several of them are vellum,[12] dating from the early part of the twelfth to the middle of the last century. The collection of the Royal Irish Academy also contains several works written on vellum, with treatises of history, science, laws, and commerce; there are also many theological and ecclesiastical compositions, which have been pronounced by competent authorities to be written in the purest style that the ancient Gaedhilic language ever attained. There are also a considerable number of translations from Greek, Latin, and other languages. These are of considerable importance, as they enable the critical student of our language to determine the meaning of many obscure or obsolete words or phrases, by reference to the originals; nor are they of less value as indicating the high state of literary culture which prevailed in Ireland during the early Christian and the Middle Ages. Poetry, mythology, history, and the classic literature of Greece and Rome, may be found amongst these translations; so that, as O'Curry well remarks, "any one well read in the comparatively few existing fragments of our Gaedhilic literature, and whose education had been confined solely to this source, would find that there are but very few, indeed, of the great events in the history of the world with which he was not acquainted."[13] He then mentions, by way of illustration of classical subjects, Celtic versions of the Argonautic Expedition, the Siege of Troy, the Life of Alexander the Great; and of such subjects as cannot be classed under this head, the Destruction of Jerusalem; the Wars of Charlemagne, including the History of Roland the Brave; the History of the Lombards, and the almost contemporary translation of the Travels of Marco Polo.
There is also a large collection of MSS. in the British Museum, a few volumes in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, besides the well-known, though inaccessible, Stowe collection.[14]
The treasures of Celtic literature still preserved on the Continent, can only be briefly mentioned here. It is probable that the active researches of philologists will exhume many more of these long-hidden volumes, and obtain for our race the place it has always deserved in the history of nations.
The Louvain collection, formed chiefly by Fathers Hugh Ward, John Colgan, and Michael O'Clery, between the years 1620 and 1640, was widely scattered at the French Revolution. The most valuable portion is in the College of St. Isidore in Rome. The Burgundian Library at Brussels also possesses many of these treasures. A valuable resumé of the MSS. which are preserved there was given by Mr. Bindon, and printed in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy in the year 1847. There are also many Latin MSS. with Irish glosses, which have been largely used by Zeuss in his world-famed Grammatica Celtica. The date of one of these—a codex containing some of Venerable Bede's works—is fixed by an entry of the death of Aed, King of Ireland, in the year 817. This most important work belonged to the Irish monastery of Reichenau, and is now preserved