Chronicles of Eri. History of the Gaal Sciot Iber or the Irish People, translated from the original manuscripts [in the Phoenician dialect of the Scythian Language], 2 vols. (London: Sir Richard Phillips & Co. 1822), folding map.; front port., 25cm. [see details]

• O’Connor’s Letters to Earl Camden, as published in the Courier (London: : printed for and sold by J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1797), 36pp.
• For the people of Great Britain and Ireland (London: [s.n.] 1798), 120pp.
• An Address to the People of Ireland shewing them why they ought to submit to an Union, by Roger O’Connor (Dublin: Printed and sold by the book-sellers., 1799), 16pp., 12º.
• View of the System of Anglo-Irish Hurisprudence: and of the effects of trial by jury, when individuals consider themselves belonging to a faction, rather than to the community, by Roger O’Connor, who appeals to the people on whom he calls to return their verdict according to evidence (London: [s.n.] 1811), 72pp.
• [with Michael J. Whitty,] Letters to his Majesty, King George the Fourth, by Captain Rock (London: B. Steill 1828), 373pp. [available [in part] at Google Books - online; accessed 19.06.2024.);

See also the following pamphlets, which are commonly said to be authored buy O’Connor himself:

• A Report of the Trial of Roger O’Connor and Martin M’Keon, at the Trim Aummer Assizes, 1817 [(Dublin: John Exshaw 1817 [copy in Aberdeen UL bound with A report of the trial of Daniel Waring, upon the prosecution of Roger O’Connor (1817); and Do. [another edn.] Trial of Roger O’Connor, Esq. ... ([Cork:] 1817], [18]pp., 8º [23cm] [Drop-head title: The trial of Roger O’Connor of Dangan Castle, for inciting the robbery of the mail coach at Cappagh Hill in its progress from Dublin to Galway on Friday, 2nd of October, 1812; held in BL.]
• An Elaborate Report of the important and extraordinary trial of Roger O’Connor, Esq. : on a charge for conspiring, aiding and abetting, in the robbery of His Majesty’s mail from Dublin to Galway, and the murder of the guard ... on the 2d day of October, 1812 : before the Right Honourable Justice Daly, and a ... jury, at Trim Assizes, on Tuesday the 5th day of August, 1817 / reported by L. Mac Nally (Dublin: Printed by E. Scott 1817), 49pp, [1; held in Cambridge UL]
• A Report of the trial of Daniel Waring, upon the prosecution of Roger O’Connor ... : at an adjournment of the commission for the county of the city of Dublin, before the Hon. St. Geo. Daly and the Hon. Edward Mayne, for perjury, Dublin County Commission Court, in “The antidote; or, Nouvelles à la main”, recommended to the serious attention of the Right Hon. W.C. Plunkett, by Richard Wilson Greene (Dublin: printed by J. M’Gowan for John Exshaw 1817), 8pp., 8º.

Letter of dedication to Sir Francis Burdett of Foremark, Baronet (iii-vi); Preface ([xvii]-xii - see extract]); Contents ([xiii]-xiv]); Contents of the Demonstration ([xv]); Directions for placing the Engravings ([xvi]); Demonstration of the Original Seat, Nations, and Tribes of the Scythian Race - Pts. I-IV [i]-ccclxii [Conclusion, cccxlviif]; Postscriptum(i-ii); The Writings of Eolas (pp.1-99).

Preface: fourth effort … to present to the world a faithful history of my country … immured in prison … 1798 and 1799 charged by the oligarchy of English with the foul crime of treason, because I would not disgrace my name by the acceptance of an earldom and a pension, to be paid by the people whom I was courted to desert, and because I resisted every art to induce me to become a traitor to my beloved Eri … Fort George, Scotland … again writing’. He gives an account of the successive destructions of the manuscript. He reports that a third version perished with his belongings in the fire at the castle of Dangan in 1809. ‘[of] liberty we wild Irish have none to lose’ [ix] Burdett arrives in Ireland, 1817. ‘This history is a literal translation into the English tongue (from the Phoenician dialect of the Scythian language) of the ancient manuscripts which have, fortunately for the world, been preserved through so many ages, chances and vicissitudes.’ [ix.] ‘… I do not presume to affirm that the very skins, whether of sheep or of goats, are of a date so old as the events recorded; but this I will assert, that they must be faithful transcripts from the most ancient records; it not being within the range of possibility, either from their style, language, or contents, that they could have been forged’ [ix]

Comments on FLOOD: ‘So fully sensible was a man of Ireland, who far surpassed all his contemporaries, and in truth, most men, I allude to Henry Flood, that if encouragement were given to bring to light and investigate ancient records of Ireland, still existing, that would be the means of diffusing great knowledge of the antique world … so convinced was he, I say, of this fact, by means of deep reseaches he had made, that he bequathd the whole of his large possessions for the purpose of instituting professorships in the University of Dublin, for the perpetuation of the Irish language, and the purchase of manuscripts therein. In this magnificent design, his views were unfortunately frustrated by the contemptible policy of an incubus that hath long over-lain unhappy Eri; for, a claimant was set up to the estates of the philosophic doctor, to who they were accordingly decreed!’ […]

On p.vi of his first chapter, O’Connor introduces his narrator, Eolus, who lived 50 years later than Moses, and was chief of the Gaal or Sciot of Iber within Gaelag, between 1368 and 1335 b.c. There is much reliance on Herodotus, Strabo, Thucydides, Polybius, etc. [Compares modern day writers to ‘the manner of Anglo Irish juries, who submit their oath to the arbitrament of chance (c) lxxi; a note relates that in a case of damages, the value is fixed between the highest and lowest sum named by the Anglo-Irish jurymen on their oaths]. Throughout, O’Connor makes extensive use of analogies and homologies between Irish [i.e., Eri, dialect of the Scythians] and Greek and Roman names. For instance, he glosses Greek Ogyges, ‘supposed to be an individual, a king of Attica, in 1766, before Christ: ‘Og-eag-eis, ‘the diminution of Og’s multitude’, the explanation heretofore given on this head, has, it is to be hoped, confuted all the fabulous relations, and demonstrated the fact; it is to be farther remarked, that the nae of Og-eag-ia hath been applied to Eri, from tradition, and frgments of old poems, at a time, and by men, who had no idea of founding s system thereon, but merely because th fact of the Gaal of Sciot having emigrated from Ib-er, which was one of the nations of Magh-Og, has never been lost sight of, and you will find by the chronicles of the Iberian races in Spain, they called themselves Og-eag-eis, and Noe-maid-eis.’ [clxxiii].

The name Bosphoros is glossed as ‘Cos-foras’, compound of Cos, or the foot, and Foras, a wa through or over the water [idem]; Maes-ia, glossed ‘Meas-iath, the land of acorns’ [clxxx]. On p.clxxxvii following he lists ‘a variety of words in th dialectics of Greece, Italy, and Eri, of the same signification in all, wherefrom you will have an opportunity of witnessing that the dialects of Greece and Eri bear a nearer resemblance to each other … &c’. Examples are Aggelos, Giola; Akrasia, Craos [gluttony]; airesis, airioch-seis [election]; amnes[t]ia, main-aide [out of mind]; eros, er [hero]; kalon, glan [neat]; kiste, ciste [chest]; lauros, go leor [abundant]; lithos, liath [stone]; phero, bear-im [I carry]; pornos, foirneadh [violent passion or inclination, i.e., adultery - here O’Connor cites Matt. 5.28]; Selene, Sul-lu-aine-e, ‘It is the light of the lesser orb or ring’; Phos, fos [light]. Vol 1 contains the Chronicle of Gaelag, being prior to the arrival in Ireland. Eolus is made to count years of reigns as ‘rings’. Vol. 2 contains the Chronicles of Eri, Part II; commencing with ‘the annals of Eri’.

A Frontispiece folding map shows Ireland with selection of ancient names inc. provinces. ‘What if this land, standing alone, an island, be called ERI for times to come? [7] … this place is too large for one chief’ [8] The final chapter of the narrative of Eolus takes events up to ‘the reign of Factna, the son of Cas, the son of Ruidhruide Mor king in Ulladh, Ardri, a space of one score and three years, from 30 to the year 7 before Christ.’ After a chronology extending across the full world-history involved, O’Connor ends: ‘And now I take my leave for the present, wishing health and happiness to all the good people of the earth, and speedy amendmnt to the vicious; and if my health will prmit (I shall certainly carry the victory over my adverse circumstances), I hope early in the year that is to ensue, to present the world with a continuation of the history of my adored Eri.’ [End]

[ The above summary was first made on manual inspection of the copy of the book held in the Library of Herbert Bell (Belfast) in 1997. Emendations rather than additions have made during a subsequent review involving sight of the digital copy available at Internet Archive - online. 19.06.2024.]

Two years after George IV’s visit to Dublin, in August 1823, the author of the Irish melodies made a trip to Kerry where he wanted to gather material for a book that he was then preparing on Whiteboyism and agrarian unrest. In Kerry, Moore came across the name of the Protean pseudonymous Whiteboy leader, Captain Rock, and heard that it was sometimes considered an acronym for ‘Roger O’Connor, King’ (Journal, 6: 664, 6 August 1823). This was an ironic coincidence because the individual to whom that nomenclature applied was an ex-United Irishman and one of the most colourful mountebanks of the period. Roger [83] O’Connor (1762-1834) had been imprisoned during the 1798 rebellion, had since then embarked on a career as a con-man, fraudster and petty criminal, and petty criminal, and had also come to see himself as the rightful king and champion of ‘his race’ (mar dh'ea: his real name was, aptly, ‘Conner’, but, true to form, Roger donned the O and styled himself O’Connor Ciarraighe). Here was life imitating the art of Morgan and Maturin, a real-life Irish rebel living out the fantasy characters of the Prince of Inismore and O’Morven. Moore gratefully seized on the coincidence for satirical effect, adding a jocular aside in his Memoirs of Captain Rock where the hero himself comments upon his name, its notoriously fraudulent and fantastical real-life analogue, and thus, indirectly, upon his own fictitiousness.

[Here quotes ‘With respect to the origin of the family name, Rock, [...]’ - as supra].

There is something highly symbolical in the encounter between Moore and the reputation of Captain Rock alias Roger O’Connor; between them, they covered the entire spectrum of Irish national letters. Moore was a poet and balladeer and a budding historian; Captain Rock the floating signifier on crude blackmailing letters from the disaffected, silenced Irish peasantry; O’Connor himself a living reminder of 1798 and an inventor and manufacturer of the country’s native roots. Moore’s trip to Kerry and his growing anti-English resentment culminated in the publication of his Memoirs of Captain Rock (1824); O’Connor was in 1828 to reappropriate the sobriquet by publishing his unabashedly radical Letters to his majesty, King George IV, by Captain Rock; but his notoriety in 1824 rested chiefly on his latest publication, in 1822, of the fraudulent and even lunatic Chronicles of Eri. All these texts are worthy of notice.

The Chronicles of Eri are a prime example of the mystification, fraud and fantasy that can flourish in the absence of proper factual material. It should be borne in mind that in 1822, the older native annals and chronicles were by and large in private hands and, by the standards of knowledge of the day, almost undecipherable and unused as materials for the writing of Irish history; Irish historians only came to rely on native annalists after the great work of inventory, cataloguing and publication had been undertaken by scholars like Charles O’Conor of Stowe, John O’Donovan and Eugene O’Curry. In 1822, The Chronicles of Eri, though a palpable imposture to modern eyes, could not easily be proved false. They claimed to be literary translations from the Irish, which in turn was given a fanciful, sort-of-Vallanceyesque derivation. The subtitle specified that the Chronicles of Eri were the history of the Gaal Scot Iber: or, the Irish people and that they were translated from the original manuscripts in the Phoenician dialect of the Scythian language, by an author who, in noble fashion, omitted his first name and signed himself ‘O’Connor’. [...; 83]

The Chronicles themselves are balderdash from beginning to end, describing ancient tribal peregrinations, the institutions of noble, rational and humane laws and similar heroic anachronisms. They do not acknowledge debts to any other antiquaries - why should they? After all, they are translations from what purports to be a promordial, authentic Irish source - but evidently follow in the mode of the Keatingesque/Vallanceyesque, Phoenician model, tracing the ancestry of the Gael [...] to a patriarch called Aoelus [...]

Leerssen goes on to cite a number of continental scholars and corresponding members of the Royal Academy who took the Chronicles for real including the German antiquarian Van Donop, a Phoenicianist, whose communication was read out by Sir William Betham at the RIA in 1837 - while L. Hermann, a ‘respected geographer’, translated the Chronicles into German in the 1930s. He concludes:

[A] loyality to fancies and a rebellion against the despotism of fact [vide Matthew Arnold, q.v.] has been ascribed specifically to the Celtic temperament, which is, of course, untenable; it would be closer to the mark to say that it is an attitude which seems to propser in a climate where the continuity of history has been disrupted and stigmatized, and people attempt to reconstitute and revalorize it on the basis of scant data. That model would account for the forging of national sources-texts in areas where genuine records have become unavailable in a climate of political tutelage and cultural self-estrangement [cites Macpherson’s Ossian, the Russian Song of Prince Igor, et al.]

The engagement between Moore, Rock and O’Connor did not end with the Memoirs. Captain Rock did not cease his literary career when Moore was done with him: O’Connor grasped the momentum of Moore’s book and adopted the persona of Captain Rock explicitly for his own when he brought out, in 1828, the Letters to his majesty, King George the Fourth, by Captain Rock. Moore’s satirical persona is kidnapped, or emancipated, from its author, and the ex-United Irishman O’Connor/Rock delivers a magnificent piece of effrontery in his own voice. He continues the conceit of Memoirs of Captain Rock by opening the book with an Introductory Letter from New York, 1 June 1826 (where we may suppose Moore’s fictional persona to have arrived following his emigratory farewell at the close of the Memoirs'). That introductory letter is addressed, in sham Irish, Do Uia Morda (read: do Ua Mórdha: To Moore), and pays Moore a back-handed compliment for having presented the Captain’s memoirs to the world in such a stylish manner.* (It is important to remember that Memoirs of Captain Rock came out anonymously and that Moore’s authorship was at best a matter of public conjecture.)

O’Connor writes (in persona as Captain Rock: ‘I committed to your hands my Memoirs [...] how great was my surprise to find them decked in an elegance of style, and a delicacy of taste, of which I was incapable!’ (p.1-2.)

Nor is that all. O’Connor’s Captain Rock has footnotes added to his letters to George IV (who, in noble fashion, is addressed affably as ‘Sir, My Cousin’ - one king to another); and these footnotes are all signed with the initials ‘U.M.’ Are we to construe that, following the introductory letter, as ‘Ua Mórdha’? Even to entertain the mere suspicion is to fall victim to O’Connor’s mystifications. In these anonymous and pseudonymous books, using half-mythical personae linked vaguely to real-life persons, who is to say what identity is authentic or false, assumed or imputed for purposes of legal anonymity or hoaxing trickery? Even O’Connor’s authorship of the Letters to George IV is something we must infer from textually circumstantial evidence. [87]

[Leerssen’s endnote here gives an account of the circumstantial evidence incl. an erratum from Erin to Eri and an account of the 1798 Rebellion which can only have proceeded from O'Connor's (lying) pen. (p.251, n.56.)]

THIS IS the fourth effort which I have made, to present to the world a faithful history of my country.

Whilst I was immured in a prison in Dublin, during parts of the years 1798 and 1799, charged by the oligarchy of England with the foul crime of treason, because I would not disgrace my name by the acceptance of an earldom and a pension, to be paid by the people whom I was courted to desert, and because I resisted their every art to induce me to become a traitor to my beloved Eri, I employed my time in writing a history of that ill-fated land, which I had brought down to a very late period, when an armed force of Buckinghamshire militia men entered my prison, and all the result of my labours, with such ancient manuscripts as I had then by me, were outrageously taken away, and have never since been recovered.
 Having beeu removed from Dublin in March 1799, and taken off to Fort George in Scotland, in the very teeth of the provisions of the Habeas Corpus Act, because I would not become a party to a compromise, whereby I should have destroyed my own fame, and justified the multitudinous acts of tyranny exercised towards me; in that military fortress I was occupied, when health permitted, in again writing the history of my native land, which I had brought down to [viii] the last moment that I remained in that part of Scotland, where I was detained until the commencement of 1801, and from whence I was brought away a prisoner.
  A part of my family and myself reached Forres, the first night after our departure, and the ladies having left their muffs in the room of the Inn in which we sat, they found on the succeeding morning that the messenger had ripped the linings, under the suspicion, no doubt, of communications from my fellow prisoners to their friends, whom I had left behind, being there secreted, in ignorance that I had given an assurance to governor Stewart, that neither I, nor any of my family, would be the bearers of any papers from them.
  This occurrence, added to the circumstance of my manuscripts having been accidentally left behind at Meldrum, for which I had to send back a few miles, made my family apprehensive that if the messenger should lay his hands upon them, my captivity would be prolonged; and having passed a day of festivity at Aberdeen, with the officers and wives of a regiment of native Scots, who had been quartered at Fort George, during a part of the time of my abode there, and from whom my family and myself had experienced something more warm than mere attention; the scene brought back to our recollection days of former times, and the partner of my secret thoughts being entitled to command any sacrifice that she would ask, having requested of me to suffer her to commit my writings to the flames, I could not do otherwise than yield; Thus perlshed the fruits of my labour in Fort George.
  Having regained my liberty shortly after my arrival in London, so far as going abroad, I did not resume my favourite object during my abode in England, which was till 1803, when I returned to my own country, and having availed myself of the earliest opportunity of reclaiming from the bowels [ix] of the earth the most ancient manusciipts of the History of Eri, I recommenced my pursuit upon a more enlarged scale, and had completed the work down to the memorable era of 1315, since Christ, (when the five kings of Eri, laying aside their jealousies, invited Edward Bruce, a prince of their own race, to accept of the sovereignty of the land,) when it, and almost all my most valuable effects, to a great amount, perished in the flames which consumed all but the bare walls -of the castle of Dangan, in the year 1809.
  Were I a fatalist, assuredly I would have thought that it had been decreed, that an authentic history of Inisfail, the Isle of Destiny, was never to see the light. Having, for some time afterwards, been kept fully occupied by agents of the oligarchy of England, in defending my property and life; — liberty we wild Irish have none to lose, — I, for a while, abandoned my project, and until the arrival of Sir Francis Burdett in Ireland in 1817, meant to defer its execution; when I promised to present to him, at as early a day as possible, an history of Ireland on the truth of which he could rely: which promise I now fulfil. This history is a literal translation into the English tongue, (from the Phoenican dialect of the Scythian language,) of the ancient manuscripts which have, fortunately for the world, been preserved through so many ages, chances and vicissitudes.
  Should any captious person be inclined to entertain suspicion of the antiquity of these manuscripts, I beg leave to observe, that I do not presume to affirm that the very skins, whether of sheep or of goats, are of a date so old as the events recorded; but this I will assert, that they must be faithful transcripts from the most ancient records; it not being within the range of possibility, either from their style, language, or contents, that they could have been forged. [x]
  So fully sensible was a man of Ireland, who far surpassed all his contemporaries, and in truth, most men, I allude to Henry Flood, that if encouragement were given to bring to light and investigate ancient records of Ireland, still existing, they would be the means of diffusing great knowledge of the antique world; and which, with the memoiials of the east that even still remain, would illuminate all the intermediate spaces of the earth; so convinced was he, I say, of this fact, by means of the deep researches which his penetrating mind had made, that he bequeathed the whole of his large possessions for the purpose of instituting professorships in the University of Dublin, for the perpetuation of the Irish language, and the purchase of manuscripts therein. In this magnificent design, his views were unfortunately frustrated by the contemptible policy of the incubus that hath long over-lain unhappy Eri; for, a claimant was set up to the estates of the philosophic donor, to whom they were accordingly decreed! Had his bequest been suffered to take effect, there is no doubt but that very many manuscripts, of great antiquity and value, which now are mouldering in a neglected state, would have been brought forth.
  It is not possible, nor would it be proper if it were, to anticipate exceptions which peradventure, may be taken to the chronicles of Eri. If such, however, should be made, and of value sufficient, the objectors may rely upon it, that satisfactory answers shall be given to all doubts and suspicions, which hitherto have invariably been found to be proportionate with the ignorance which at this moment pervades the people of England, with regard to the history, ancient and modern, of this celebrated land. — once the seat of learning, and equal and just laws, now of demoralization and injustice.
  It remains that I now acquaint the world, that I shall instantly resume my work for the purpose of continuing the history of Eri, the next volume of which, to be brought down to the year of the Christian era, 1169; I hope to complete so as to be ready for publication in the month of March next; and if I live, I will prepare the Chronicles of Ireland to the day of my birth in another volume; and then I will give the history of my own times in one other, the concluding volume of the whole; which five volumes will be a complete continued history of this noble island, under the names of Eri, to the year 1169, and of Ireland from that epoch, from the most remote time to the instant on which I shall drop my pen. (pp.vi-xi; end.)

O’Connor

Paris 1821

I now come to present you with a specimen that affords proof incontrovertible of the identity of the Phœnician and Iberian language, as written at this day in Ireland, with the circumstances connected with which proof, it will be necessary to give you some previous information.
 A comic writer of Rome named Plautus, amongst others of his works, wrote a piece, called Pœnulus, anglice the Carthaginian, in which he introduces a scene, representing Hanno going in quest of his two daughters, who, with their nurse, had been stolen by pirates, and sold to one, who had conveyed them to Kaludon in Œtolia, where having arrived upon intelligence of the fact, he addressed himself to the deity of that land, of the title of whom, though he a stranger, was ignorant, he knew the people of the country had many gods ; therefore makes his supplication to the chief, which Plautus has preserved in the Phœnician language, as Shakspeare has done in those pieces where he introduces natives of France, whom he represents speaking in their own tongue.
 You are to note, that the first line is Carthaginian, the second line is Iberian of Eri, and the third is the servile translation thereof into English.

   Nith al o nim, ua lonuth sicorathissi ma com syth
   An iath al a nim, uaillonnac socruidd se me com sit.
O mighty splendor of the land, renowned, powerful; let him quiet me with repose.

   Chin lach chunyth mumys tyal raycthii barii imi schi
   Cim laig cungan, muin is toil, mo iced bearad iar mo sgit.
Help of the weary captive, instruct me according to thy will, to recover my children after my fatigue.

   Liph o can etyth by mithii ad aedin binuthi,
   Libh a cain atac be mitis, ad eaden beannuigte.
With thee O let a pure hope be in due season, in thy blessed presence.

   Byr nar ob sillo homal O nim ubym I syrthoho,
   Bir nar ob sillad uimal a nim, ibim a srota.
Deny not a drop of the fountain to the humble, O splendor, I drink at the streams,

   Byth-lym, mo thime nocto, thii ne lech anti dias ma chon,
   Bi tu le me, mo time nocta, ni leg tu onta dis mo coine.
Be propitious, my fear being respectfully revealed, suffer not my miserable daughters to be stained with pollution.

   Handone silli hanum bene, silli in mus-tine
   Andon sillei anam feni, sillei san baois tetgne. (a)
Although Venus instils vigor, she also instils the fire of concupiscence.

   Meipsi en este dum, alam na cestin um
   Meisi ain; eist do me; A lam ni ceisd tu me.
Respected judge, listen to me, do not hastily question me, (that is) call my fidelity in question.

[Note: Here text is interrupted by a folding map and resumes in a discontinuous section involving a broken a series of philological comparisons and toponymical conjections relating to place-names formerly considered Celtic through a supposed historical error which he impugns. A similar textual lacuna occurs between ccvliv and cclv - where it is likewises identified with with the introduction of a single half-page columnar print-form. In the currently instance he resumes after the conclusion of the toponymic examples:]

[...]
 It is sufficient to say, that the people of Carthage were a colony from Tyre; ‘The daughter of Zidon the inhabitants of the isle, whom the merchants of Zidon had replenished,’ according to Isaiah, and that the Tyrians were called, in the days of Solomon, Zidonians, and consequently used the language of Phoenicia.
 That this city was founded 883 years before Christ:
 That the colony of Iberians had emigrated from Gallicia to Eri, 12S years befoi-e the building of Carthage[.]
 That neither the people of Sidon nor of Carthage ever had the slightest communication with us of Eri, from 1006, before Christ:
 And that Plautus wrote about 200 years before the Christian era. Now look back upon the foregoing lines; doth not wonder fill your whole mind, at the surprizing preservation of the Irish language for which I will account when we arrive at Eri, whither I am hastening as expeditiously as I ought to speed.

Note: O’Connor quotes Caesar to prove that the Gauls were not Scythians, as were the Celts and Gaels (tres partibus ... &c., & Ipsorum lingua ... &c.: cclxiii-iv) and more extensively quotes Edward Lhuyd [here Lwhyd, Luhyd, and Lhuyd] on kinship of Irish, Welsh and old Spanish languages; (cclxxxviii-ccxc; also cccxli). Remarks on Edward Lhuyd:

‘[...] In fine Lhuyd is perfectly correct in saying, that all the most ancient names of places in Britain are in the Irish language, but is erroneous in fancying it to be Guydhelian, of which word I can but guess at the meaning, and suppose it to be a kind of English translation of the bard’s monstrous distortion of Gaal, of which they made Gaoidhiol, for the sake of their rhymes, if this be the word, the misconception of Lhuyd is complete in every case, his Guydhelian being the common or ordinary name of the Iberian and Scottish dialect of the Scythian tongue, signifying neither more or less than the language of the Gaal, that is, the Gael of Sciot of Iber, heretofore fully explained.’ (cccxliii [343]).

The Gaal Sciot Ib-eir having established themselves in three quarters of Eri, [t]heir chronicles will inform you, that the genuine feodal system was in perfect operation. [cccli]

Government executed by a single chief elected,
An armed people,
Public assemblies,
Possession of lands not individual, but tribal,
Dwelling in tents;

—See full copy of “Conclusion” [to of “Demonstation”], in The Chronicles of Eri (1822), Vol. I - as attached.