THE Literature of Ancient Ireland has for some minds — and those chiefly of high imagination — an indefinable yet powerful fascination. Nor is this surprising, for it is the product of a Race highly dowered; keenly sensitive to the mystery and magic of Nature, and responsive to the spiritual no less than the heroic in Man.

The Celts of Ireland have been from very early times a literary people. Before they were acquainted with the art of writing, the tales of love, and war, and glory, in which they delighted, were recited by their Bards, and orally preserved in verse. In historic times these were committed to writing, and still exist, in books penned more than a thousand years ago. Their Brehons, or Judges, adjudicated the laws, and recorded the pedigrees so important to a tribal people[.]

[viii]

We can trace the Celtic occupation of Europe from the Black Sea to the Atlantic, in pre-historic times, by the expressive names which this race gave to places. These evince their poetic feeling for the varied scenery of land and water, and are instinct with “ a penetrating lofty beauty.”

Their monuments still exist over most parts of the globe, so far as it was known to the Ancients. These are mainly sepulchral — vast chambers of unhewn stone, Dolmens, Cromlechs, Cairns, or Earthworks covering a central chamber. With the Hero over whose mortal remains such stupendous works have been erected, were interred his most precious possessions, weapons of flint, stone, bronze, and finely polished jade — a material only found in eastern Asia — and likewise ornaments of gold, sometimes associated with beads of amber which must have come from the shores of the Baltic; these indicate the extended range of their early trade or barter.

In the western parts of Europe the Celtic languages are still spoken. Brittany, Wales, the Isle of Man, the Highlands of Scotland, and southern and western Ireland, retain the speech of this primitive race. Nor is it surprising that in Ireland — where the Roman invader never trod — their most characteristic and numerous relics are now to be found. Here are its Pagan seats of regal authority, Tara, Emania, Aileach; its fortress-Duns — such as Rath Keltar, near Downpatrick, or the Moat of Castletown, near Dundalk: its dry-stone fortresses of immense size and strength — such as Staigue Fort, in Kerry, Dun Angus and Dun Conor, on the Isles of Aran, off Galway Bay. Here, too, may be inspected its sepulchres of New Grange, Dowth and Knowth near the Boyne, and Slieve-naCaliagh near the Blackwater, with others too numerous for mention. Ireland possesses also very early Christian remains; Round Towers, sculptured Crosses, primitive Churches and Cells, Shrines, Bells, and Croziers; also Ogham-inscribed pillar stones, all deeply interesting to the Archaeologist. The country is rich also in gold ornaments of exquisite workmanship; metal work and leather work of beautiful design; book covers, and book cases, which evince the artistic taste of the Gael — for so these early inhabitants of the island called themselves.

Above all, the Libraries of Ireland, England, and the Continent, possess innumerable Manuscripts, the work of Irish scribes, many of them exquisitely illuminated. These scribes, trained in the Monastic Schools of Ireland, went forth during the sixth and subsequent centuries as missionaries. They have left their vestiges all over Europe as scholars, civilizers and Christianizers of its then heathen population.

Notwithstanding the ravages of Time, a considerable [ix] able number of MSS. still remain intact both abroad and at home. The late Professor O’Curry in his Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (Dublin, 1861), has estimated that existing documents, known to him, would, if printed, fill four thousand pages as large as those in O’Donovan’s edition of the Annals of the Four Masters; the Ossianic Tales three thousand more; and he computes that the Romances and Miscellaneous Literature would extend to upwards of five thousand pages of that large size. Yet this amount of unpublished matter is a mere fraction — a survival only of that which has been lost by the ravages of Scandinavian Vikings, Norman invaders, civil wars, and confiscations, from which the native race has repeatedly suffered during the last thousand years. A glance at the National Majiuscripts of Ireland^ published in five large volumes by the Government, with its samples of the art of the early illuminators and scribes, will convince the most sceptical that the Gael of Ireland have from primitive times been a learned and artistic race.

The sixth volume of the “New Irish Library” contains a brilliant sketch of Early Gaelic Literature up to the date of the invasions of the Northmen in the ninth century, from the pen of Dr. Douglas Hyde. His translations from the Irish afford samples of [xi] “Gaelic style,” while the preface treats of the obstacles which retard its reception by the English reader.

”The moment the English reader embarks on the sea of native Irish literature,” writes Dr. Hyde, “he finds himself in absolutely unknown waters. It is not merely that the style, the phraseology, the turns of speech, the entire metrical system, are as unlike English as though the whole of Europe lay between the two countries, but its allusions are to things and times and events and cycles and dynasties, strange and unknown to him, and he thus finds himself suddenly launched into a new world, whose existence was by him perfectly unsuspected. He is beset on every side by allusions which he cannot understand, similies he cannot grasp, and ideas which are strange to him. ... This very contrast lends to Irish literature a peculiar value and a great enchantment, for its fibres to the latest day of its life were twined deep down in the soil of Ireland, knit inseparably to the ancient history, mythology, topography and romance of the island. . ...
“Everyone knows now, or ought to know, that Irish is, like Greek, Latin and Sanscrit, a pure Aryan language, and a highlyinflected and very beautiful one also. . . . The numerous Continental scholars who have studied it (and who now freely admit that the Old Irish ranks near to Sanscrit in importance for the philologist) all speak of it in terms of highest praise.”

Dr. Hyde observes of the primitive literature of Ireland that it “never evolved a drama. ... What it did produce — and produce nobly and well — was romance.” He asks pertinently:—

”Now who were the authors of these couple of hundred romances? It is a natural question, but one which cannot be answered. There is not a trace of their authorship remaining, if authorship be the right word for what I suspect to have been [xi] the gradual growth of racial, tribal and family history, mixed with Celtic mythology, thus forming stories which were ever being told, and re-told, and polished up, and added to, and which were — some of them — handed down for, perhaps, countless generations; others recount historical tribal or family doings, magnified during the course of time; others, again, of more recent date give us, perhaps, fairly accurate accounts of real events. I take it that as soon as bardic schools and colleges began to be formed, there was no class of learning more popular than that which taught the great traditionary stories of the various tribes and families of the great Gaelic race, and the intercommunication between the bardic colleges propagated local tradition throughout all Ireland.
“It is this easy analysis of our early literature into its anteChristian and its post-Christian elements which makes it so valuable. For, when all spurious accretions have been stripped off, we find in our most ancient tales a genuine picture of Pagan life in Europe, for which we look in vain elsewhere. ... He (the student) has no other means of estimating what were the social life, feelings and modes of thought of those great races who inhabited so large a part of the old world, Gaul, Belgium, North Italy, parts of Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the British Isles, who burned Rome in its infancy, who plundered Greece, and who colonized Asia Minor. But, in the early Irish romances and historical tales, he sees come to light another standard by which to measure; through this early Irish peephole he gets a vivid picture of the life and manners of the race in one of its strongholds, from which he may conjecture, and even assume, a good deal with regard to the others. That the pictures of social life and early society drawn in the Irish romances represent phases not common to the Irish alone, but to large portions of that Celtic race which once owned half Europe, may be surmised with something like certainty from the way in which characteristics of the ‘ Celts,’ barely mentioned by Greek and Roman writers, re-appear amongst ourselves in all the intimate detail and fond expansion of romance.”

[xiii]

Such being the admitted difficulties which have made the subject unpopular, it is natural to inquire in what its value and attraction consists? This question will allow of many answers. Dr. Douglas Hyde has alluded to the light reflected from Ireland on the social condition of the pre-historic populations of Europe. Sir Samuel Ferguson has told that —

             ”The man aspires
To link his present with his country’s past,
And live anew in knowledge of his sires.”

And Mr. Standish O’Grady, in his Early Bardic Literature Ireland (1879), has shown how illuminating is that literature when studied in connection with existing sepulchral and other monuments on Irish soil:—

” But there is one country in Europe in which, by virtue of a marvellous strength and tenacity of the historical intellect and of filial devotedness to the memory of their ancestors, there have been preserved down into the early phases of medireval civilisation, and then committed to the sure guardianship of manuscript, the hymns, ballads, stories and chronicles, the names, pedigrees, achievements, and even characters, of those ancient kings and warriors over whom those massive cromlechs were erected and great cairns piled. There is not a conspicuous sepulchral monument in Ireland, the traditional history of which is not recorded in our ancient literature, and of the heroes in whose honour they were raised. In the rest of Europe there is not a single barrow, dolmen or cist of which the ancient traditional history is recorded ; in Ireland there is hardly one of which it is not. And these histories arc in many cases as rich and circumstantial

[xiv]

as that of men of the greatest eminence who have lived in modern limes. . , .

”There is not a King of Ireland, described as such in the ancient annals, whose barrow is not mentioned in these or other compositions, and every one of which may at the present day be identified where the ignorant plebeian or the ignorant patrician has not destroyed them. The early History of Ireland clings around and grows out of the Irish barrows. ... Her ancient history passed unceasingly into the realm of artistic representation; the history of one generation became the poetry of the next, until the whole island was illuminated and coloured by the poetry of the bards. Productions of mere fancy and imagination these songs are not, though fancy and imagination may have coloured and shaped all their subject-matter, but the names are names of men and women who once lived and died in Ireland, and over whom their people raised the swelling rath and reared the rocky cromlech. In the sepulchral monuments their names were preserved, and in the performance of sacred rites, and the holding of games, fairs and assemblies in their honour, the memory of their achievements kept fresh till the traditions that clung around these places were enshrined in tales which were finally incorporated in the Leabhar na Huidhre and the Book of Leinster. ...

”Foreigners are surprised to find the Irish claim for their own country an antiquity and a history prior to that of the neighbouring countries. Herein lie the proof and the explanation. The traditions and history of the mound-raising period have in other countries passed away. Foreign conquest, or less intrinsic force of imagination, and pious sentiment have suffered them to fall into oblivion; but in Ireland they have been all preserved in their original fulness and vigour, hardly a hue has faded, hardly a minute circumstance or articulation been sulfered to decay. ...

”There is one thing to be learned from all this, which is, that we, at least, should not suffer these ancient monuments to be destroyed, whose history has been thus so astonishingly preserved.

[xv]

”When the study of the Irish literary records is revived, as certainly will be revived, the old histoiy of each of these raths and cromlechs will be brought again into the light, and one new interest of a beautiful and edifying nature attached to the landscape, and affecting wholly for good the minds of our people.

”Irishmen are often taunted with the fact that their history is yet unwritten, but that the Irish, as a nation, have been careless of their past is refuted by the facts which I have mentioned. A people who alone in Europe preserved, not in dry chronicles alone, but illuminated and adorned with all that fancy Could suggest in ballad, and tale, and rude epic, the history of the mound-raising period, are not justly liable to this taunt.”

Although Ireland may thus be said to hold those “ Keys of the Past,” it must be borne in mind that the Celtic element, though less prominent elsewhere, has not been absolutely eradicated, and can still be traced underlying other civilizations. The ancient Britons were not exterminated by their Roman conquerors, who, after holding the island for some four centuries, finally abandoned it. Nor did the AngloSaxons — rashly invited by the Britons — do more than expel them from the fertile districts in the east and south to the mountainous regions of the west, where — as in Wales — their ancient language is still spoken. The Normans who subjugated the Saxons in England and the Gael in Ireland, had themselves in their veins an infusion of Celtic blood. It is to that element in the population of England that her literature — in the [xvi] opinion of Mr. Matthew Arnold and Mr. Morley — owes some of its finest characteristics.

Mr. Morley, in his English Writers before Chaucer, has expressed his views:—

”The main current of English literature cannot be disconnected from the lively Celtic wit, in which it has one of its sources. The Celts do not form an utterly distinct part of our mixed population. But for early, frequent and various contact with the race that in its half-barbarous days invented Ossian’s dialogues with St. Patrick, and that quickened afterwards the Northmen’s blood in France, Germanic England would not have produced a Shakespeare.”

Mr. Matthew Arnold, in his Lectures On the Study of Celtic Literature, eloquently writes:—

”The Celt’s quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished gave his poetry style; his indomitable personality gave it pride and passion; his sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it a better gift still, the gift of rendering with wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. The forest solitude, the bubbling spring, the wild flowers, are everywhere in romance. They have a mysterious life and grace there ; they are nature’s own children, and utter her secret in a way which makes them something quite different from the woods, waters, and plants of Greek and Latin poetry. Now of this delicate magic, Celtic romance is so pre-eminent a mistress that it seems impossible to believe the power did not come into romance from the Celts. Magic is just the word for it— the magic of nature; not merely the beauty of nature— that the Greeks and Latins had; not merely an honest smack of the soil, a faithful realism — that the Germans had; but the intimate life of nature, her weird power and her fairy charm.”

[xvii]

It is not easy, or even possible, to define wherein lies the charm of the literature of the Gael. It must he felt, and it has at the present time, as in the past, found an audience “fit,” though “few.” It is hardly to the credit of our countrymen that scholars from France and Germany are more interested in it than we are, and come to Ireland solely for the purpose of its study. One of these, M. H. D’Arbois de Jubainville, Professeur au College de France, in his Introduction a l’étude de la Litterateur Celtique, speaks of this dawn of letters in Ireland:—

”Celte époque de prosperité oú l’étude oú la litterature nationale et celle des lettres latine et chrétiennes florissaient l’une a c6te de l’autre en Irlande, se prêtant un mutuel appui et produisant une foule de monuments curieux, depuis en grande partie détruits par les baibares qui ont dévasté l’lrlande au neuviême et au dixiême siecle, et par les hommes civilisés qui l’ont mise a feu et a sang au seiziême et au dix-septieme. Les restes que les bibliothèques nous conservent, de cette vaste littérature peuvent être comparés aux édifices en ruines qui attestent la grandeur de certaines civilisations disparues; il en subsiste assez pour nous permettre de nous figurer ce que devait être, avant sa destruction, le grand corps dont nous n’apercevons plus que d’incomplets fragments, et pour nous provoquer à en commencer l’étude avec un curiosité qui n’est pas sans mélange d’admiration.”

Probably the cause suggested by Mr. Matthew Arnold in one of his critical essays why “ the common sort of readers “ patronize a ** common sort of literature” only, may be the true one. They “do not [xviii] want and could not relish anything better. Even if good literature entirely lost currency with the world,” he continues, “it would still be abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself.”

This literature, both Christian and Pagan, was full of charm for Sir Samuel Ferguson. In early youth he commenced for his own gratification the study of Irish. Although he never mastered the language, he knew enough to glean from Gaelic sources the material which, in after life, he made the ground-work of many of his poems. He was a keen antiquary, and visited in the intervals of professional work those existing remains of the race he loved wherever they were to be found, on hill or dale, on lake or shore, or in museums at home and abroad. His knowledge of manuscripts and books familiarised him with their history and traditions, thus re-doubling his interest in each form of record. Details have been given in his biography. Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his Day, 1896, and also in his Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, posthumously published in 1887.

Ferguson’s poems, included in the present volume. Lays of the Red Branch, are illustrative of a very early period in the story of Pagan Ireland, dating as far back as the opening of the Christian era. It may also be called “the Conorian Cycle,” for the heroes [xix] whose deeds are commemorated are grouped around the throne of a northern prince, Conor Mac Nessa. Emania {Emain Macha), near Armagh, was the Royal capital. The great earthwork — still standing& mdash; covers eleven acres of land, and is at present known as “Navan Fort.” Within a short distance is another earthwork, which has given its name of Creeve Roe to the adjoining townland. This was the place of assemblage of a chivalrous confraternity, whose heroic achievements, recorded by the Bards, are the themes of these Lays of the Red Branch, culled from the poetr}’ of Sir Samuel Ferguson.

The foundation of Emania — a fortress of the Celt which has stood for at least two thousand years — belongs to mythical times. Two different stories are told by the Bards in explanation of its name, Emain Macha. Both are barbarous and even repulsive ; but, as Sir S. Ferguson remarked in a letter to Professor Blackie — “ It is no answer to say these things are intrinsically jejune, or ugly, or barbarous. You will probably agree with me that much of the material of the best classic literature is as crude and revolting as anything in Irish or in Welsh story. Raw material, however, to be converted to the uses of cultivated genius, is not all that we might reasonably hope for from such sources. There are ways of looking at things, and even of expressing thought, in these [xx] deposits of old experience, not to be lightly rejected by a generation whose minds are restless with unsatisfied speculation, and the very clothing of whose ideas begins to show the polish of threadbareness as much as of culture.”

The legend, explanatory of the name of Emania, which Sir Samuel versified, forms the first and probably the least attractive in the series of poems concerned with the Conorian Cycle. Terrible as it is, he points out that “it forms a necessary part of the introduction to the great epic romance of the Tain or Cattle-spoil of Quelgné.”

This poem, the “Twins of Macha,” shews the first link in a chain of events which bring out the idea of moral retribution with Æschylean grandeur. In these events the greatest part is played by Cuchullin, who may be termed the Achilles of the Irish Iliad, and the story of how he received his hero name is narrated in the second of the tales here given, “ The Naming of CuchuUin.” Setanta, for such was his name as a boy, was the nephew of Conor Mac Nessa, being the son of Dectire, that monarch’s sister. With “The Abdication of Fergus Mac Roy” we are introduced to a new series of events. These ultimately flow together, and coalesce with the Cuchllin Cycle to form the great poem of the Tain-Bo-Cuailgne, or Cattle-spoil of Quelgné. For Fergus Mac Roy’s abdication puts [xxi] Conor on the throne — and he it is who sets in motion the forces that work themselves out in the Tain. The beautiful tale of Deirdre, the most famous in ancient Irish legend, deals with the tragic issues of a deed of impious treachery performed by King Conor. The Epic of the Tain, unhappily not rendered in full detail by Sir Samuel Ferguson, shows how Fergus, in vengeance for the outrage done by Conor to those whom Fergus had pledged himself to protect, allies himself with Maev, the warrior Queen of Connaught, and invades the dominions of Conor with a mighty host. Here is the stage on which the great exploits of Cuchullin were performed. The Tain, if Sir S. Ferguson had given it to us in English, would have enlarged on all the topics which are glanced at in his poem of the “Tain Quest,” the latest of the Lays contributed to the present volume. For in this poem, which deals with the recovery in the sixth century of the forgotten Epic, the tragedy of Deirdre, the expedition of Maev, the character and position of Fergus, reputed author of the Tain, are all referred to. The Ulster heroes, beloved by Fergus, of whom Cuchullin was chief, his combats at the Ford, the death, by his hand, of his early friend, Ferdia; champions who “in the pauses of the deadly combat kissed “ — all these touching and heroic incidents are recorded in the “Tain-Quest,” [xxii] and these are the subject matter of the Tain-Bo Cuaigne.

This very early work, preserved in more or less fragmentary form in some of our Irish MSS., has been epitomised by Ferguson in the Introduction to his Lays of the Western Gael:—

”Deirdre, a beautiful virgin, educated by Conor for his own companionship, saw and loved Naisi, who eloped with her, and, dreading the wrath of the king, fled to Scotland, accompanied by his brothers and clansmen. Conor, contemplating the treachery he afterwards practised, acquiesced in the entreaty of his councillors that the sons of Usnach should be pardoned and restored to the service of their country; and to Fergus was confided the task of discovering their retreat and escorting them to Emania under security of safe-conduct. The hunting-cry of Fergus was heard and recognized by the exiles where they lay in green booths in the solitude of Glen Etive. On their return to Ireland, a temptation prepared for the simple-minded convivial Fergus detached him from his wards; and Deirdre and the clan Usnach proceeded under the guardianship of his sons, Buino and Ulan, to Emania. Here they were lodged in the house of the Red Branch, where, although it soon became apparent that Conor intended their destruction, they repressed all appearance of distrust in their protectors, and calmly continued playing chess until, Buino having been bought over, and Ulan slain in their defence, they were at length compelled to sally from the burning edifice, and were put to the sword ; Deirdre being seized again into the king’s possession. On this atrocious outrage Fergus took up arms as well to regain his crown as to avenge the abuse of his safe-conduct; but Cuchllin and the principal chiefs remaining faithful to Conor, the much injured ex-king betook himself with others of the disgusted Ultonian nobles to the protection of Maev and Ailill, the Queen [xxiii] and King Consort of Connaught. Thus strengthened, the warriors of Maev made frequent incursions into the territories of Conor, in which Keth and Bealcu on the one hand, and Cuchullin and Conall Carnach on the other, were the most renowned actors. After many years of desultory warfare, a pretext for the invasion of the rich plain of Louth arose in consequence of a chief of the territory of Cuailgne having illtreated the messengers of Maev, sent by her to negociate the purchase of a notable dun bull, and the great expedition was thereupon organized which forms the subject of the Tain-Bo-Cuailgne. The guidance of the invading host, which traversed the counties of Roscommon, Longford and Westmeath, was at first confided to Fergus ; and much of the interest of the story turns on the conflict in his breast between his duty towards his adopted sovereign, and his attachment to his old companions in arms and former subjects. On the borders of Cuailgne the invaders were encountered by Cuchullin, who alone detained them by successive challenges to single combat, until Conor and the Ultonian chiefs were enabled to assemble their forces. In these encounters Cuchullin also had the pain of combatting former companions and fellow-pupils in arms ; among others, Ferdia, who had received his military education at the same school and under the same amazonian instructress at Dun Sciah, in view of the Cuchullin hills, in Skye. In the respites of their combat the heroes kiss in memory of their early affection. The name of the ford in which they fought (Ath-Firdiadh, now Ardee, in the county of Louth) perpetuates the memory of the fallen champion, and helps to fix the locality of these heroic passages. Maev, though ultimately . overthrown at the great battle of Slewin, in Westmeath, succeeded in carrying off the spoils of Louth, including the dun bull of Cuailgne ; and with Fergus, under the shelter of whose shield she effected her retreat through many sufferings and dangers, returned to Croghan, the Connacian royal residence, near Elphin, in Roscommon.”

In his Hibernian Nights’ Entertainments, written in youth, Ferguson gave a free rendering from the Irish original of “The Death of the Children of Usnach,” a story “which hath never been varied during many hundred years of constant tradition, and which hath delighted more princes, and nobles, and honourable audiences, than any other story of Milesian times.” It is interspersed with lyrics such as Deirdre’s “Farewell to Alba,” and her “Lament for the Sons of Usnach.” These, when compared with his monodrame, “Deirdre,” in the present volume, evidence that the fortunes of this hapless heroine filled his imagination from youth to age. “The Heahng of Conall Carnach,” included in the following work, introduces us to another hero of the Tain. He is the slayer of Mesgedra, whose combat with Conall is the subject of the poem in this series, called by his name. “ Mesgedra “ has been criticised by Mr. T. W. Lyster with insight and sympathy.

In spite of some barbarous incidents in the story, Mr. Lyster observes that “in nearly all the poems based on Irish heroic myth, he” — Sir S. Ferguson — “is attracted by some moral, or religious, or humane idea, either inherent in the myth or read into it in his imaginative scrutiny. This is one of the notes of distinction in his poetry — poetry revealing in all its traits a nature of high distinction.”

[xxv]

“Conary” — the last poem which remains for mention— may seem at first sight to have Httle connection with the cycle of Conor Mac Nessa, for Tara — not Emania — was the capital of the stately, peaceful monarch who is its subject. Conary was supreme King of Erin — Ireland being a pentarchy — while Conor was only provincial king of the northern province, and Ailill and Maev rulers of the western. In the retinue of Conary, who had been making a peaceful progress through the island, were warriors such as Cormac Conlingas, the son of Conor Mac Nessa, and Conall Carnach, the friend of Cuchullin, then deceased. At a place not far from Dublin, still pointed out as the site of one of the Bruidins, or Houses of Hospitality of ancient Ireland, the Royal cavalcade halt for the night, and are attacked by pirates who set fire to the building. The warriors who surround the king sally forth to confront the assailants, but are beglamoured and spell-bound by malignant spirits. Conary is slain. Conall, released at last from their supernatural and evil enchantments,

appeals

”To you Beings of goodness perfect, and to Thee
Great unknown Being who hast made them all,
Take ye compassion on the race of men.”

The prevalence of the supernatural in this work, dealing so largely as it does with the beliefs of the [xxvi] ethnic Irish — their magic, their superstition, their bondage to spiritual beings who walk the earth — gives a mysterious eeriness to “Conary.” It has been pronounced by competent judges to be among the best of Ferguson’s poems, Mr. W. B. Yeats goes further, for he says, when comparing him with contemporary poets: — “Ferguson had the more ample imagination, the more epic aim. His ‘Vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley’ is the best Irish ballad, and his ‘Conary,’ a long battle-tale in blank verse, the best Irish poem of any kind.”

Ardently attached to the land of his birth, and undeterred by the apathy of the public, Ferguson persistently devoted his genius to the service of Ireland. Fully aware that he sacrificed present popularity in so doing, he continued to make Irish themes the subject of his verse and prose, and was willing to forego that appreciation from his contemporaries so grateful to a poet and man of letters. In the epistle to Professor Blackie, already spoken of, he writes:— “The repugnance to the subject amongst English men of letters — from whom our upper classes have borrowed all they know or feel in the matter — is not unnatural. A man who fancies his education finished does not like to learn a new language and a new classical dictionary, with the view merely to the expression of critical opinion for an audience at [xxvii] present very limited in number, and probably better read in the subject than himself.” And in Ferguson’s Inaugural Address, in 1882, as President of the Royal Irish Academy, he speaks of the work the Academy had undertaken in the transcription in fac-simile of our most ancient Irish manuscripts thus placed within reach of Continental scholars, and glories in the forecast that “within the next ten years the whole bulk of the old native Irish literature will be in the hands of scholars all over the world.” In this hope his patriot heart exulted. “If there ever was a legitimate hope at the bottom of scholastic effort,” he continued, ‘’it animated the men who brought these things together and put them in their present posture and capacity for use. ... To their hands mainly has been committed the guardianship of the materials out of which such a literature as I have been contemplating may be evolved.”

This aspiration was his to the last. It is thus expressed in a letter to Dr. Whitley Stokes:— “I see old friends falling and failing around me, and must be content to go my ways, leaving undone a great deal that I ought to have done; but I have lived, and loved, and done something if not all I might, and will bequeath, in all likelihood to you, or possibly to one or two others, the duty and, I hope, the reward of making the voice of this despised people of ours heard high up Olympus.”

[xxviii]

t is hoped that Sir Samuel Ferguson’s poems of the Conorian Era, Lays of the Red Branch, included in this volume of the “New Irish Library,” now arranged in the sequence he himself suggested, may assist the reader in the realization of the characters and actions ascribed to their heroes in the Bardic Chronicles of ancient Ireland-

M. C. FERGUSON.

20 North Great George’s St., Dublin,
           June 17th, 1897.