PREFACE.

IN these times, when a laudable spirit of research pervades almost every civilized people of the globe, and that the histories of the most remote nations, as well barbarous as polite, are sought after with an extraordinary degree of curiosity, and read with proportionate avidity, the publication of an ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND must be considered as a useful undertaking, from which much interesting information on the ancient state of the Christian church may be collected. The frigid apathy, however, with which the generality of Irish readers slur over every publication that treats of the ancient state of their native country, might be sufficient to deter an author from an enterprize of that nature; but although discouraging such an unpatriotic feeling as exhibits itself in the great bulk of our countrymen must be, there are still several learned and investigating gentlemen amongst our compatriots, as well as in the Sister Island, and on the Continent, by whom such a work has been long and anxiously desiderated, and from whom a liberal encouragement may, therefore, be reasonably expected.

When the long established character of Ireland for literature and sanctity is called into remembrance, when the great respectability of the ancient Irish Church is considered, and when we bring to our recollection the numerous places in the Continent to which she has sent her missionaries, who, with the most ardent charity, unceasing labours and fearless courage, have taught the use of letters, disseminated the saving truths of the Gospel, and triumphantly planted the banner of the Cross amidst barbarous and pagan nations, it must be a matter of surprise that her history should remain unwritten for the long period of 1400 years. Yet such is the fact, no connected history of the Irish Church has been hitherto published, although an abundance of materials for that purpose are still in existence; notwithstanding that the devastating hand of barbarism has been unsparingly engaged in the overthrow of our literary establishments, and in the destruction of our ancient records, the monuments of our nation's glory. These documents are, however, widely scattered, and are principally to be found in the decrees of sy nods and councils, the bulls and briefs of the popes, the rules of our ancient monks, the epistles of bishops, the registries of our churches, the annals of the nation, and the lives of our saints. Of these materials, some have been published through the medium of the press, by Colgan, Fleming, Wadding, Usher, Ward, Ware, Burke, and others; and their respective editions have been enriched by copious notes and illustrations. Others, principally written in Irish, containing matters of the utmost importance

to our national history, and tending to elucidate the history and antiquities of various Celtic nations, are, for want of proper encouragement to translate and publish them, still suffered to remain in manuscript, a prey to moths and vermin, and must in a few years more, unless timely care be taken to prevent it, become irrecoverably lost to the world.

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Of those books that have been published, that treat of things connected with the Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, the greater part have long since. become scarce, are now only to be found in the libraries of Colleges, and in the collections of the curious, and therefore not accessible to the public in general. Besides this, being mostly in the Latin language, they are not accommodated to a large proportion of readers; and no one has hitherto undertaken to arrange them in a continued chronological series, so as to connect them with the general history of the whole Christian Church, or to embody them in one united whole, in the regular form of an Ecclesiastical History.

In the civil histories of Ireland that have been written by Keating, Mac Geoghegan, O'Halloran, and others, little of our Ecclesiastical History is to be found, beyond a few detached anecdotes, in great part fabulous, destitute of chronological accuracy, and often contradictory.

Usher, indeed, has collected much excellent materials for the history of the earliest times of our national Church, to the latter end of the sixth century, in which he was greatly assisted by valuable communications from David Rooth, R. C. bishop of

Ossory, for which he repeatedly returns him thanks in various places of his Primordia.

In the accounts of the Irish bishops, published by Ware and Harris, much useful information is also to be found, although in the additions of the latter frequent errors and inaccuracies occur, on which, for the sake of truth, it was found necessary, in the course of the following work, to make some observations. The writers of the Irish Monasticons have also furnished some materials for an Ecclesiastical History of the country, but great caution must be observed in using them, as they frequently abound in error, particularly Archdall, who converts into monasteries all the churches founded by St. Patrick and our earliest native Saints, is often inaccurate in his chronologies, and frequently confounds persons and places with each other that are totally different.

The book, miscalled Antiquities of Ireland, published by Dr. Ledwich, would, from its title, lead one to suppose that some information on this subject might be obtained from it; but upon examination it will be found to contain a studied misrepresentation of our ancient history, that some of our earliest Saints, of whose existence no doubt can be entertained, are by him attempted to be annihilated, that by the magical effects of his pen he labours to transform St. Senan into a river, St. Kevin into a rock, and St. Patrick, the great Apostle of our nation, into a nonentity. The reputation which this book has obtained with a particular class of readers and authors, who wish to degrade the Irish below the level of the most barbarous nations, called for par