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left but a few old printed books of history and some pieces of his own writings". The motto of the O'Flaherties "fortuna favet fortibus" suggests they were more warrior-like than scholarly. Roderic was the most learned of his noble line. He was careless of wordly goods, a lover of personal ease, and as becomes a man of letters he was studious for the sake of study and loved his research. In later life he sat by his ancient fort where his forefathers had lived. The sanctity of his native place remained relatively uninvaded. Although naturally broken hearted by the fate of the nation, he was the destitute monarch of all he surveyed. He reputedly sat on a large grassy stone outside his house at Parke from which he surveyed "the sublimity of the prospect". To the west was Aran with its association with the saints and sages of Ireland's golden age. Southwards were the burren's rocky hills with memoirs of bards and brehons where the O'Davourens taught the intricacies of the Celtic legal code for a thousand years and the O'Daly's sang the glories of ancient Gaeldom. Inland lay the native soil of the O'Flaherty clan now in the possession of foreigners. Perhaps he wondered whether there would be an Irish posterity or if anyone would read his narrations of Milesian glory or Scythian enterprise, whether his scholarship would be erased by the tides of time, or if his work would go unnoticed by future generations.

Roderic O'Flaherty's work has been preserved, and he remains the greatest of Irish classic historians. He has left us six volumes of Irish history of priceless value, a great legacy from a great man. He died on the seventh of April 1718, and he was buried at his house at Parke, Co. Galway by his only son Michael, who sought to preserve his property by having his father interred on the premises. In this republication of Iar Connacht we now seek to recreate the reputation of a great man, the last great scholar chieftain of the O'Flaherties, and to restore to the world his additions to the stock of human knowledge. His grave is unmarked, and though other great scholars of that era have had their epitaphs written, Roderic O'Flaherty has not been honoured so.

Dr. William J. Hogan

1977

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HE territory of West Connaught, the antient seigniory of the O'Flaherties, was extended of old beyond Lough Orbsen, and the river and town of Gallway, to the barronies of Kilmain, Clare, and Dunkellind.

Its cathedrall (as every Irish seigniory had its own, whose diocess runned with the seigniory's bounds) was Enagh

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Roderic O'Flaherty. For a biographical notice of this learned individual see the genealogical and historical account of the O'Flaherties, compiled from original documents, in Appendix III.

b West Connaught.-Accurately so called, says De Burgo in his Hibernia Dominicana, for it is like a peninsula forming IRISH ARCH. SOC. 15.

dun,

the West of Connaught, nay, even of all Ireland. "Et merito quidem, est enim ad instar Peninsula in Occiduo Conacia, immo totius Hiberniæ."-p. 308. It is in Irish called lap or laptap Connace, but by our author, in his Ogygia, p. 386, latinized "West-connactia ;" and was one of the great divisions of the cuigeao, fifth *B

dun, dedicated to St. Brendan, the 16th of May, Anno Christi, 577, there deceased, in the barony of Clare, on the brink of Lough Orb

or province of Connaught, which was itself, anciently, the most extensive of the five provinces, or curgeaba, into which Ireland was originally divided.

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Lough Orbsen.-Or Oirb, now corruptly Corrib. For an account of this lake, and of the river and town of Galway, mentioned immediately after in the text, see further on in this treatise.

d Kilmain, Clare, and Dunkellin.—Kilmain, in Irish, Cill Mheadoin, a barony in the south of the county of Mayo; of which that part lying south of the River Robe was the ancient territory of Conmhaicne cuile toladh, one of the five Conmhaicnes of Connaught, for which see our author's Ogygia, P. iii. ch. xlvi. p. 276. This was the ancient seignory of O'Talcarain. Ap Conmaicnecuile at clor, O Talcapain.—O'Dugan's Topogr. Poem, Stanz. 55. See also Lynch's Cambr. Evers. p. 27; and O'Brien's Dict., in voce Conmhaicne. The race of O'Talcarain has long since become extinct. After them the O'Conors, of the Siol-Muireadhoigh race, seem to have acquired power and possessions in this district. In A. D. 1155, the church of Kilmain was burned. -Four Masters. The O'Flaherties at an early period acquired some small portions of the southern part of this rich district, which bordered on their own territory of Ui bruin seola; but the entire was afterwards possessed by the Anglo-Norman adventurers, chiefly the Burkes and their

sen;

descendants, who built the castles mentioned in the text. In the thirteenth century, this territory was the scene of great warring and contention, between those adventurers and the native tribes, the O'Conors and the O'Flaherties.-See the Annals of the Four Masters, particularly at A. D. 1225, et sequent. In A.D. 1265, a conference took place at Kilmain, between Tomaltach O'Conor, Archbishop of Tuam, and the Prendergasts, at which many of the Archbishop's people were slain. Id. See Ware's account of this dispute, where he incorrectly calls this place Kilmethan. In A. D. 1585, the ancient district of Conmhaicne cuile toladh was created the barony of Kilmain, so called from the ancient church there. Archdall was unacquainted with the site or name of this foundation.-See Monast. p. 503. In A. D. 1789, Sir John Browne, Bart., was created Baron Kilmain of the Neale, in the county of Mayo.-Ir. Peerage.

Clare. This was the ancient territory of Ui Ŏruin Seola, the original inheritance of the O'Flaherties, or Muintir Murchada (from Morogh, the son of Maonach, who died A. D. 891.-Four Masters), which included the districts of Ui Bruin Ratha and Clann Feargaile, in the latter of which Galway was situate. It was also called Muintir Murchadha, from the tribe name of the possessors. Rickard Earl of Clanrickard, who died 24th July, A. D.

sen; which, besides the cathedrall, had an abbey of Chanon Regulars, and a nunnery.

But since the year of Christ, 1238, wherein the baronies of Clare, Kilmain and Keras were planted with castles" by the English,

1582, was seized of a chief rent of twenty marks out of the cantred called Moyntermoroghou.-Ing. Rolls Off. Dub. This territory, excepting a small portion to the south, was created the barony of Clare, in A. D. 1585; and it was so named from the castle of Baile an Chlaire, now Clare-Galway, which lies about five miles N. E. of that town. The O'Flaherties possessed this territory from the fifth to the thirteenth century, when they were driven out by the Anglo-Norman Burkes. They then crossed Lough Orbsen (Corrib) and dispossessed the more ancient owners of the territories of Gnomore, Gnobegg, and Conmhaicnemara, the present baronies of Moycullen and Balinahinch lying west of that lake, as will appear in the sequel.

Dunkellin. In Irish, Dún Caillin. This barony was created in A. D. 1585, and named from an ancient dun or castle within its boundaries. It formed part of the territory of Ui Fiachrach Aidhne, in the south of the present county of Galway; and, with the barony of Clare before mentioned, was included in the more modern territory of Clanrickard in that county, acquired by the families of De Burgo after the English invasion. See Appendix I. for a particular account of that territory, in A. D. 1585.

e

the

* Enaghdun.-Now Annaghdown. We learn above from our author that the diocese of Enaghdun was conterminate with the "seignory" or territory of the O'Flaherties. The extent of both might, therefore, be satisfactorily ascertained from the ecclesiastical survey and taxation of Ireland, made in the time of Pope Nicholas, A. D. 1291; but that curious record is kept in London, in the department of the Queen's Remembrancer there. The extent of the diocese of Enaghdun, at a subsequent period, may be learned from the MS. E. 3, 13, in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, which contains, "the state of the dioceses of Tuam, Enaghdun, and Kilmacduach," in the reign of Elizabeth, and in the time of Christopher Bodkin, who succeeded archbishop Lally, A. D. 1536.- Ware. See also the Regal Visitation of A. D. 1615.

f But. This paragraph seems misplaced. Half of it, viz., as far as the word "Arran," properly belongs to the first, and the remainder to the second paragraph.

8 Kera.-In Irish Ceapa. The barony of Carra, or Burriscarra, in the county of Mayo, bordering on the barony of Kilmain, in the same county, was part of the territory of Hy-Fiachrach, the ancient principality of the O'Dowde family. Although

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