46 JOURNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The bulk oof the present volume is concerned with families tha.t !belong to Oonnacht. Here we may be permitted to remark th:a.t tihe preponderance of Western fiamilies in these studies is no proof tha·t Oonnacht had more learned tamiHes, in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, than any other of Ireland's provinces. The sad truth is that war and pillage and every other fo-rm of dest~·u1ction have taken greater toll of Ireland's lea.rned heritage than we can now easily imagine. There is for ex,am1Ple. only one essay on a Mu1rnter f'amily in this vo1uime. It will be found (pp. 252-62) in an essay on "The Book of Munster," which To>rn1a edited for the Irish MSS. Commission seven yearn ago. How many other Munster volumes per~shed in M:ountjoy's great devastation durmg the last years of EJ.iz:aibe·tlh's reign? This volume deals with the Ann:als of Ulster and v1arious WesteTn Annals. Apart from the Annals of Innisfallen, which escaiped destruction in the most Wes.tern kingdom nf Munster, what have we to-diay that can be com:pared with the materials frcm Ulster and Conna:c'nt? Hew much has been lost beyond hope of recovery? Apart from the Book of Leinster, how little has come dm:vn to us from the gre:at mon~stic centres of tJh.at province? Foreign conquesit drove acroEs our island, from East to 'West; and its work wa.~ dest•.mctive of all that learning which Father P:aul is here striving to recover from the little that survives today. The first three essays in this volume deal with the family of O Duigenan, and e.E1pecially with David O Duigenan whose hand1writing is familiar to any who may have looked through the MSS. once owned by Oha'rles O Cbnor of Belinag.a.re. now in the ltbr'arv aif th~ Royal IriEh Academy. Then there is an essay on the family of O Ma·elconaire, greatest perhia1P1s of all the learned familie.s of Connacht. Flather Paul Walsh's review of the new edition of "The Book of Fem;gh," whic!h D;_'. Macalis•ter prepared for the Irish MSS. Commission in 1939, is here re!printed. I't c-cntains his de.fence of Muir.gius: o Maelconaire from some of the c.ha.riges t•rnught against his honesty and s.cholarsihlip by the modern editor. But Fa.ther Paul's deva.stati.ng criti-cisms of Dr. Mac1a1ister's ciwn work as a critical editor of Irish MSS. is here omit,ted as i-rrelevant to the main purpose of this volume. Frcm 0 Duigenan and 0 Maelconaire we pa.!'s to e>:.says on Tadhg Dall O Huigin and the great nubhaltach Mac Fir'bisigh himself. This la·tter essay opens with the well-known contemporary account of the crime which ended the life of seventeenth--ce.ntury Irel1and's greatest scholar. BiU<t Dulbha~ta.ch would, I think, be best :pleased wi1th Father Paul's wmk as a. modern scientific genealogist. For he here corrects the texit of DubhaJta.ch's genealogy as printed b~ John 0 Donnvan in' his Trioes and Customs O'f Hy-Fiacraic.h, testing 0'1Donovan's oreadings from the evidence of no less than ten, hitherto unused, Irish manuscripts of the same text. The result is pernau:is. not very rea:daible a.s litearture~lfor Father Paul was never a sitylist nor a poJ)ulia.riser of his own great lea·rninig; hut it is a1t leas·t a very sound contribution to Irish scholarshiJP. We p:aiSs to a few famous Irish MSS. which, at one time or another, a1ttracted Father Paul's unwearyin1g interesit: the Gre1at Bnok of Lec1a.n, the Book o'f the Dun Cow, t,wo o;: 1tlhree of the MISS. formerly in the Franciscan library at Mer:e:hant's Quay, no.w housed in their new convent at Killiney. There is a masterly analysis of the fragmentary text to whi·ch modern scholars have given the misleading title "Annals of Tige'inach." Another essay on "The Ma.guires and Irislh Learning" brings us iruto tench with the Annals of Uls1ter. Essay.s on "An Iris:h Medical Family," "Irish· Scholars at Louv.ain," ''Poets, His.- torians and Judges" are ;perha,ps of more general in.te-res:t~though in all of them deta.il is crowded, and none of them make easy reading. !Jast of the collection is a short bro:a.dcast whklh Father Paul W.alsh delivered on Radio E'.reann in 1940: it is an a1pi;1reciation of his own great predecessor, as Irish his.tmian, J'ohn o Donovan. In this addrern to the peo\ple of Irelard. F1,1ther Paul s1peaks sirnrply, but with tl1e fullness of grea.t knowledge. Colm 0 Lochlainn ends his volume, very fi1tly, witlh three r.crscnal Lit:utes to the memory of F·athe·r Faul Wa.lsh which were 1prnblished soon after his dea.th in 1941. The fullest bio.graphlc:al account will be found in F:a·ther John Brady's essay, here re1prirnted from the "IriEih Ecclesiastical Pv::cord." Father Frank Shaw. himself (like Father Paul) a Westmeath man, compares Father Walsh to John O'Donovan in a fine trtbuite, here re.printed from "Studies." And colm o L6chlainn ends the volume with a mc,ving t.r!hute to his dead friend, which was first printed in "T·he Irish Book-Lover." We may all ioi •1 in the prayer With which he concludes his essay: :suaimhneas s;orru1 abuil an t-Uan do. A.UBIREY GWYNN.
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