[18] _Poets_.--The _Book of Lecain_ was written in 1416, by an ancestor of Mac Firbis. Usher had it for some time in his possession; James II. carried it to Paris, and deposited it in the Irish College in the presence of a notary and witnesses. In 1787, the Chevalier O'Reilly procured its restoration to Ireland; and it passed eventually from Vallancey to the Royal Irish Academy, where it is now carefully preserved.
[19] _Murdered_.--The circumstances of the murder are unhappily characteristic of the times. The Celtic race was under the ban of penal laws for adherence to the faith of their fathers. The murderer was free. As the old historian travelled to Dublin, he rested at a shop in Dunflin. A young man came in and took liberties with the young woman who had care of the shop. She tried to check him, by saying that he would be seen by the gentleman in the next room. In a moment he seized a knife from the counter, and plunged it into the breast of Mac Firbis. There was no "justice for Ireland" then, and, of course, the miscreant escaped the punishment he too well deserved.
[20] _Lost_.--He was also employed by Sir James Ware to translate for him, and appears to have resided in his house in Castle-street, Dublin, just before his death.
[21] _Betaghs_.--Poems, by D.F. Mac Carthy.
[22] _Noah_.--This is a clear argument. The names of pre-Noahacian patriarchs must have been preserved by tradition, with their date of succession and history. Why should not other genealogies have been preserved in a similar manner, and _even the names of individuals_ transmitted to posterity?
[23] _Laws_.--MacFirbis. Apud O'Curry, p. 219.
First Colonists--The Landing of Ceasair, before the Flood--Landing of Partholan, after the Flood, at Inver Scene--Arrival of Nemedh--The Fomorians--Emigration of the Nemenians--The Firbolgs--Division of Ireland by the Firbolg Chiefs--The Tuatha Dé Dananns--Their Skill as Artificers--Nuada of the Silver Hand--The Warriors Sreng and Breas--The Satire of Cairbré--Termination of the Fomorian Dynasty.
We shall, then, commence our history with such accounts as we can find in our annals of the pre-Christian colonization of Erinn. The legends of the discovery and inhabitation of Ireland before the Flood, are too purely mythical to demand serious notice. But as the most ancient MSS. agree in their account of this immigration, we may not pass it over without brief mention.