AN IDENTIFICATION OF LOCALITIES, CHIEFLY

IN LEINSTER,

VISITED BY

SAINT PATRICK

AND HIS ASSISTANT MISSIONARIES;

AND OF SOME

CONTEMPORARY KINGS AND CHIEFTAINS.

With an Essay

ON

THE THREE PATRICKS,

PALLADIUS, SEN PATRICK, AND PATRICK MAC CALPHURN,

APOSTLES OF IRELAND

IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.

BY

THE REV. JOHN FRANCIS SHEARMAN.

DUBLIN:

M. H. GILL & SON, 50, UP. SACKVILLE-STREET.

E. PONSONBY, 116, GRAFTON-STREET.

LONDON: BURNS & OATES; AND SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.

PREFACE.

THE chapters or parts constituting this volume have appeared at intervals in the "Journal of the Royal Historical Association of Ireland." Commencing in vol. ii., Fourth Series, April 1873, they have been continued to the October number of vol. iv. of the same series, 1878. When the early parts were written, very little more was designed than to give an account of the discovery of the Biliteral Ogham monuments at Killeen Cormac, and the local legends in connexion with the Life of St. Abban Mac ua Cormaic; the subject, however, grew apace, and fresh ideas and new discoveries extended these chapters beyond the original design and limits.

An unexpected discovery of a passage in the Naemsencus in the Leabhar Breac led to a search for the "Four true Druids" of the Killeen inscription; the first of them, Dubhtach Mac ua Lugair, being even at that period of the inquiry sufficiently identified with the locality, and its venerable Ogham monument. On looking over, more by chance than design, that part of the Naemsencus which treats of the saints buried in the old cemeteries of Erinn, the writer alighted on the passage given in chapter iv., p. 46. A very limited knowledge of the language of these MSS. enabled him to discover the names of