The Topographical Poems of John O'dubhagain and Giolla Na Naomh O'huidhrin
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Columbia SinttJcrattj) mtl\t€\tvútMmfcvk THE LIBRARIES TOPOGRAPHICAL POEMS. O'DUBHAGAIN. O'HUIDHRIN. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL POEMS OF JOHN O'DUBHAGAIN AND GIOLLA NA NAOMH O'HUIDHlilN. EDITED IN THE ORIGINAL IRISH, FROM MSS. IN THE LIBRARY OF THE ROYAI. IRISH ACADEMY, DUBLIN ; WITH TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATIONS, BY JOHN O'DONOVAN, LL.D., M.R.LA., Corresponding Memlipr nf the Royal Anaflfmy of Berlin. DUBLIN: rPJXTED FOR THE IRISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND CELTIC SOCIETY, BY ALEXANDER TIIOAI, 87 & 88, ABBEY-STKEKT. 1862. : THE IRISH ARCH^OLOGICAL AND CELTIC SOCIETY, FOR THE PUBLICATION OF THE MATERIALS FOR IRISH HISTORY. MDCCGLXII. HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF LEINSTER. THE MOST NOBLE THE MARQUESS OF KILDARE, M.R.I.A. THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN, M.R.I.A. THE RIGHT HON. LORD TALBOT DE MALAHIDE, M.R.I.A. VERY REV. CHARLES W. RUSSELL, D.D., President of Maynooth College. ConncH VERY REV. CHARLES GRAVES, D.D., President of the Royal Irish Academy. REV. JAMES GRAVES, A.B., M.R.I.A. SIR THOMAS A. LARCOM, K.B., M.R.I.A. JOHN C. O'CALLAGHAN, ESQ. EUGENE O'CURRY, M.R.I.A. GEORGE PETRIE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. REV. WILLIAM REEVES, D.D., Secretarj- of the Royal Irish Academy. AQUILLA SMITH, M.D., M.R.I.A. W. R. WILDE, M.D., Vice-President of the Royal Irish Academy. ;^ímía:ncs : REV. J. H. TODD, D.D., Vice-President of the Royal Irish Academy. J. T. GILBERT, Esq., Librarian of the Royal Irish Academy. 19, DAWSON-STREET, DUBLIN. Dublin, 20t7i January, 1862. Hie entire of this vohime, tvitJi the exception of the Index, was finally revised for the press by the late John O'DoNOVAN, LL.D., previous to the first of December, 1861. TTie Index, since completed, is entirely the woric of the Rev. William Reeveíí, D.D. J. H. Todd, D.D., V.P.R.I.A., | Hon. J. T. GiLBEKT, M.R.I.A., J Secretarih. CONTENTS. ^^'''^ Introduction : O'Huidhrin, . Of the Topographical Poems of O'Dubhagain and [ 1 ] Of the Ancient Names of Tribes and Territories in Ireland, . [ 6 ] Of Ancient Irish Agnomina, . • • [ 17 ] Ireland, Of the Lish Names anciently assumed by the English in [ 21 ] Of the assumption of English Names by the Native Irish, . [ 25 ] Of the Irish Families who retained their Ancient Names on the Continent and in Ireland, . • [ 30 ] Of Irish Family Names Anglicised and altered, . [ 42 ] Of Ancient Irish Christian or Baptismal Names of Men, and their modernized forms, . • • • • • [ 51 ] Of ancient Irish Female Names and their changes, . • [ 59 ] Concluding Observations, . • • • [ 63 ] O'Dubhagain's Topographical Poem, ...... 1 O'Huidhkin's Topographical Poem, 80 Notes to O'Dubhagain's Topographical Poem, 1 Notes to O'Huidhrin's Topographical Poem, xlix Various Readings, selected fi'om Michael O'Cleiy's copy as compared Ixxxvii with the text of Cucocriche (or Peregrine) O'Clery, . Index, xcvii INTRODUCTION. Of the Topographical Poems of O'Dubhagain and O'Huidhrin. There are two copies of these poems in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy ; one in the handwriting of Cucocriche O'Clery, the other in the transcript of Duald Mac Firbis's Genealodcal Work, made for the Academy by Mr. Eugene Curry. The original of this latter copy, is in the hand of Michael O'Clery, the chief of the Four Masters, and is bound up with the autograph of Mac Firbis's Genealogies, in the volume from which Mr. Curry tran- scribed it, a MS. in the possession of the Earl of Roden. The various readings of these copies are given after the notes to the present volume. No vellum copy of these poems has yet been discovered, nor is it probable that any exists. In a modern paper copy of them preserved in the Leabhar Branach, in the Library of Trinity CoUege, Dublin, the authorship is ascribed to Ferganainim Mac Eochadha (Mac Keogh, now Keogh), chief poet to the O'Byrnes, of Wicklow ; but this copy being modern, and of little authority, has not been used in this edition. It is probable, that a copy of O'Dubhagain's poem was originally contained in the Book of O'Dubhagain, called Leabhar Ui Maine, Book of Hy- Many, 'a great part of w'^'ch is now in the possession of Lord Ashburnhain ; but no reference to such a poem occurs in O'Reilly's description of the contents of that Manuscript, as it stood when ' in the possession of Sir William Betham, nor is it to be found the detached fragment of the same Manuscript now in the Libr; of the British Museum, Egerton 92 (Pint, clxviii.). The first printed notice of these poems, so far as the Editor has been able to ascertain, is the abstract given by Dr. John Lynch, in cap. iii., of his Gartibrensis Eversus, published in 16G2, where the author, in the following passage, ascribes the a : —" " : [ 2 ] Introduction. enth-e to O'Dubliagain alone, and makes no mention whatever of O'Hiiidhrin " Nee stirpium Hiberniam, ante arma illuc ab Anglis illata, incolentium nomenclaturam aliunde melius haurii-e poterimus, qukra ex illo insigni Joannis O'Duvegani poeinate, cui melioris notse stemmata, quae suo ambitu antiquitus Hibernia complexa est inseruit. Illius autem Hibernici scripti initium est: Triallam timcheall na Fodhia, &c., qu£e verba hunc sensum referunt, ' O socii pulchrte fines obeamus lernes.' Wliich the Rev. M. Kelly thus translates : '' Nor can we obtain the nomenclature of the tribes who inhabited Ireland before the English had carried their arms thither, from any better source than that remarkable poem by John O'Dubhagain, in which he has in- serted the families of better note which Ireland anciently comprised within its ambit. The beginning of that poem, which is written in Irish, is ' Triallam timcheall na Fodhia,' &c., which words convey this meaning ' O, companions, let us traverse the territories of beauteous lerne.' Dr. Lynch's abstract of the poems was annotated by the Editor of the present volume, in the edition of Camhrensis Eversus edited by Rev. M. Kelly for the Celtic Society, in 1848-52. Nearly opposite the quotation, "Triallam thncheall na Fodhia," Dr. Lynch has, in the margin of p. 25, "In ejus libro, 221," from which it appears that he took his abstract of the poem from O'Dubhagain's book. The O'Clerys ascribe the authorship of the first poem to O'Dubhagain, and of the second to O'Huidhrin; and it is very clear, from the first two quatrains of the second poem ascribed to O'Huidhrin, that O'Dubhagain had left his work un- finished, but not through igiiorance, and that O'Huidhrin under- took to complete a task which this learned man had not lived to accomplish. At the conclusion of his abstract of these poems, the author of "Cambrensis Eversus" (Kelly's Ed., vol. i., p. 278) observes : " Non sum nescius optimo poemati me decus omne detraxisse, quod in- signis fragmenti, compage soluta, partes tumultuarié dissipavi, sicut tere- tem fabricam lapidum distractio venustate spoliat. Missum tamen ilhid facere non volui, ut ex tarn locupleti monumento constaret, qui, ante The Topographical Poems of O^Dubhagain, ^r. [ 3 ] Anglos hue ingressos, Hiberniae regiones incoluerunt. Plerseque autem é meraoratis in isto poemate gentibus ; sub initio nuperi belli, non solum in rerum natura extiterunt, sed etiam alia? in aliquo pristinse ditionis angulo perstiterunt, aliai latissimis latifundiis jiotiti sunt." " I am conscious that the merit of the original excellent poem cannot be appreciated from the hurried abstract which I have given of this re- markable fragment just all beauty and stone ; as order departs from a structure when the union of its component parts has been dissolved. Nevertheless, 1 did not wish to omit an opportunity of giving from so valuable a monument an account of the families who inhabited the various territories of Ireland before the incursion of the English. Most of the families which the poem mentions, were not only in existence at the com- mencement of the late war, but some of them were even then occupying portions of their old territoi'ies, and others enjoyed most extensive estates." In his chapter on these poems, Dr. Lynch has strangely confused tribes and famihes, evidently from translations made for him from the originals, of wliich it would appear there were then extant different copies interpolated in various places by unskilful hands from other topographical tracts. Edward O'Reilly, in his "Catalogue of Irish Writers," pp. 99, 100, gives the following account of this poem, and its author, under A.D. 1872 :— " John O'Dugan, chief poet of O'Kelly, of Ibh Maine, died this year. He was author of 'A Topographical and Historical Poem,' of eight hundred and eighty verses, beginning 'T~'piallam mnceall na "Poibla:' ' Let us go around Fodhla (Ireland).' This poem gives the names of the principal tribes and districts in Meath, Ulster, and Conaght, and the chiefs who presided over them, at the time Henry II., King of England, was invited to this country by Dermod Mac Morogh, King of Leinster. " From the first line of this poem, and from the few ranns that this author has left us, on the districts of the province of Leinster, it would seem that it was his intention to have given a complete account of all the districts and chief tribes in Ireland; and it would be a cause of much regret, that he left unfinished so interesting a work, if it had not afterwards been taken up and completed by his contemporary, GioUa-na-naomh-O'Huidhrin, who died, an old man, in the year 1420.