with the territory of Ui-Cairin, but also for the royal descent to which they laid claim. It is thus that Leabhar-na-Ceart commemorates the tributes which were due to the king of Eile:—

To which verse O'Donovan adds the following note:—

"Eile. This was the name of a tribe and an extensive territory, all in the ancient Mumha or Munster. They derived the name from Eile, the seventh in descent from Cian, the son of Oilioll-Ollum ... The ancient Eile comprised the whole of Eile Ui-Chearbhail, which is now included in the King's County ... and also the baronies of Ikerrin and Elyogarty in the county of Tipperary.... Ikerrin and Elyogarty were detached from O'Chearbhail shortly after the English invasion, and added to Ormond, but the native chieftains O'Meachair, i.e. O'Meagher, and O'Fogartaigh, i.e. O'Fogarty, were left in possession".

7. We will not fatigue the reader by citing a long series of authorities in which similar statements recur. Two will suffice for all, and we shall take them from the works of the late lamented professor of our Catholic University, Eugene O'Curry. One is a genealogical extract, in which Michael O'Clery, the chief of the 'Four Masters', commemorates some of the most illustrious families of the Milesian race. From Heber, he says, the Son of Milesius, were descended thirty of the kings of Ireland, and sixty-one saints. Amongst these royal chieftains must be reckoned Teadgh (i.e. Thaddeus), grandson of Oiliol Ollum, and he adds:

"The descendants of this Teadgh branched out and inhabited various parts throughout Ireland, namely, the race of Cormac Gaileng, in Luighne Connacht, the two Ui-Eaghra in Connacht, the O'Eaghra of the Ruta, O'Chearbhaill of Eile.—O'Meachara in Ui-Cairin, and O'Conor, etc". (Curry's Lectures, etc., pag. 147).

The other extract to which we wish to refer is published in the Appendix to the 'Battle of Magh Rath', which was translated and edited for the Celtic Society by the same great Irish scholar in 1855. The eighth genealogical Table (pag. 175) in this work, extracted "from O'Clery's Pedigrees, and Mac Firbis", tells us that "Mechair, from whom O'Meachair or Meagher", was fourteenth in descent from Oiliol Ollum, and the following note of O'Clery is added to his name:—

"There is a steed and a suit of clothes from each new chief of them to the Comharba of St. Cronan of Roscrea, together with Innisnambeo; and he (the Comharba) is to go around the chief to proclaim him chief; and the Comharba is entitled to sit at his shoulder, and the chief should stand up at his approach: and this Meachair was King of Eile".

From all this we are surely justified in concluding that the historic date of solum Cariense and regia progenies are precisely those which we should expect to find in a commemoration of an illustrious member of the family of the O'Mahers. 4

8. Our holy bishop, though thus descended from the first monarch of our island, wished, when journeying from Rome, to enter as a pilgrim the public hospital of St. Anthony in Ivrea, and there, in the true evangelical spirit, rejoiced in being reckoned the poorest of the poor. Heaven, however, has decreed that the humble shall be exalted; and no sooner had the unknown traveller closed his eyes to this world, than a divine light filled the room in which he lay; several prodigies awakened the devotion of the faithful, and proclaimed his sanctity; and the clergy and laity in solemn procession bore his hallowed remains to the cathedral church, and numbered him amongst the patrons of that ancient see. Thus, again, was Dr. Thaddeus true to the traditions of his family; for, besides his royal descent, he could boast of the higher and nobler lineage of sanctity. In the Martyrology of Donegal we find the names of two members of the family whose festivals were celebrated on January 16th and September 6th. Colgan, too, speaks of a Saint Mecharius, whose life he had prepared for publication, and whose feast was marked for the 13th of November (AA. SS., pag. 756).

Dr. Reeves also informs us that a St. Machar, better known by the Irish appellation of Mochonna, was sent by St. Columba with twelve companions to preach the Gospel to the Picts, and subsequently became the patron saint of Aberdeen (Adamman's Columba, pag. 246, 289, 299, etc.). On a fly-leaf of the original MS. of the Martyrology of Donegal, in the handwriting of O'Clery or Colgan, a Saint Murro is commemorated, with the addition, "id est, Machare, seu Meacharius", and the interesting fact is further commemorated: "quod feras bestias subjugavit et triduo defunctum ad vitam revocavit" (Martyr. Doneg., I. A. S., xlvi.).

We do not wish, however, to leave unanswered the difficulty which the words of Ware present against our interpretation of this holy bishop's name. He expressly styles this bishop "Thady M'Carthy, by some called Mechar". Here then we must remark that Ware does not identify these names; and the name Mechar, which, as Ware acknowledges, was by some authorities given to this bishop, is proved by the monuments of Ivrea to have been his true name. What then was the origin of Ware's mistake? We learn from the Monumenta Vaticana (pag. 503), that there was about this time a Thaddeus Mac Carryg "iniquitatis filius", who endeavoured to intrude himself into the see of Ross, and who is erroneously ranked by Ware amongst the bishops of that see (see Record, No. iii., December, 1864). As that name resembles Mac Carrha or Mac Carthaigh, the Irish forms of Mac Carthy, it seems not improbable that Ware, by one of his so-frequent errors, confounded our holy Bishop Thaddeus with that iniquitous usurper (see Dublin Review, April, 1865, p. 384).

10. Perhaps we have here again a clue to the difficulties which compelled Bishop Thaddeus to abandon his see for a while, and seek a refuge in Rome. When appointed in 1490, several retainers of the Desmond family refused to admit him to the possession of the temporalities of his see (see Record, pag. 312). Now it was precisely in 1488 or 1489 that Thady M'Carthy had been compelled by the repeated censures of Rome to surrender the temporalities of Ross to the canonically appointed Bishop Odo; and what more natural than that the same genius of evil should, on the vacancy of the adjoining diocese in the following year, stir up again the embers of discord, and endeavour through his kinsmen to obtain possession of this see at least? And as the Protestant historian reckoned the usurper of the temporalities of Ross amongst the canonical successors of St. Fachinan, so, by a somewhat similar mistake, he may have easily confounded the same Thaddeus M'Carryg with the holy bishop who canonically ruled the united sees of Cloyne and Cork.

11. It now remains to make a few other remarks on the interesting paper published in the last Record.

In the first place, there are some incidental errors which seem to be inadvertently introduced. At pag. 379, Richard Wolsey is commemorated as successor of Thady, Bishop of Down, who died in 1486, which opinion has long since been set aside by De Burgo and Dr. Reeves (Eccles. Antiquities,