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 THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF IRELAND. 
 
 
 
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 ENGLISH COMMISSIONERS AND IRISH RECORDS. 
 
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ENGLISH COMMISSIONERS AID IBISH RECORDa 
 
 A 
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM MONSELL, M.P., 
 COLONEL FRANCIS P. DUNNE, M.P., 
 
 AND 
 
 COLONEL FITZ-STEPHEN FRENCH, M.P., 
 
 ON THE REPORT OF 
 
 T. DUFFUS HARDY, ESQ., 
 
 DEPUTY-KEEPER OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF ENGLAND, 
 
 AND 
 
 J. S. BREWER, ESQ., M.A., 
 
 LAID BEFORE THE TREASURY BY 
 
 SIR JOHN ROMILLY, 
 
 MASTER OF THE ROLLS OF ENGLAND, 
 IN REFERENCE TO 
 
 THE PUBLICATION OF "THE CALENDAR OF THE PATENT AND 
 CLOSE ROLLS OF IRELAND." 
 
 BY 
 
 AN IRISH ARCHIVIST. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 J. RUSSELL SMITH, 36 Soho Square.— DUBLIN : W. B. KELLY, 8 Grafton 
 Street.— EDINBURGH : T. G. STEVENSON, 22 South Frederick Street. 
 
 1865. 
 
Calendar of Patent and Close Eolls (Ireland.) 
 
 Copy "of the Report of Messrs Brewer and Hardy, laid before the 
 Treasury by the Master of the Rolls of England, in reference to the Pub- 
 lication of the Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Ireland." Ordered 
 by the House of Commons to be Printed, 21st February 1865. 
 
 [The references in the following pages are to the second editions of 
 "Record Revelations " and " Record Revelations Resumed," entitled "On 
 the History, Position, and Treatment of the Public Records of Ireland. 
 By an Irish Ajchivist." London : J. Russell Smith, 36 Soho Square. 
 Dublin : W. B. Kelly, 8 Grafton Street, 1864.] 
 
:i!^,T.- 
 
 
 I 
 
 ENGLISH COMMISSIONERS AND IRISH RECORDS. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Circumstances of publication of Calendars of Patent and Close 
 
 Rolls of Ireland, 
 Character of the so-called " Calendars," 
 Publication of " Record Revelations," 
 Proceedings in the House of Commons, July 1863, 
 Publication of "Record Revelations Resumed," 
 Appointment of Conunissioners to investigate Calendar transaction. 
 Investigation by Irish Archivists demanded. 
 Acknowledged qualifications of Irish Archivists, 
 Irish Archivists excluded from investigation, ... ... 
 
 Appointment of Messrs T. D. Hardy and J. S. Brewer of the Rolls 
 
 Department, 
 Their qualifications in connexion with Irish Archivism, 
 Mr Brewer's observations on Irish Chiefs and their descendants, . . . 
 
 „ „ on the O'Conor family, 
 
 „ „ on Irish gentry, ... 
 
 „ „ on the Irish and their history, ... 
 
 Messrs Brewer and Hardy on the Irish language, 
 Historic antecedents of England and Ireland ignored in Report, . . . 
 English Commissioners versus Continental scholars, 
 New doctrines on language, 
 Views of J. M. Kemble, 
 
 Commissioners contradict themselves on subject of Calendars, 
 Commissioners admit their want of knowledge of Irish Archivism, 
 Evidence of Commissioners' defective information, . ... 
 Apologetic character of *' Report," 
 "The Irish Archivist" assailed by Commissioners, 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 6 
 7 
 8 
 
 8 
 8 
 8 
 10 
 11 
 12 
 12 
 13 
 14 
 15 
 16 
 17 
 18 
 19 
 20 
 20 
 
 O 59335 
 
r'- 
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Commissioners' unsuccessful attempts to divert attention from main 
 
 points, ... ... .... ... ... ... 21 
 
 Official combinations, ... ... ... ... ... 22 
 
 Recapitulation of original allegations put forward in "Record 
 Revelations," 
 
 Allegations I. and II. 
 
 Indefensible character of Prefaces admitted by Government, ... 23 
 
 New doctrines on law of property, ... ... ... 24 
 
 Charles Reade on piracy, ... ... ... ... 24 
 
 Thikd Allegation. 
 
 Charges against Annotations not contested by Commissioners, .. 25 
 
 Allegations IV. and V. 
 
 Editorial ignorance of Rolls not disproved, ... ... ... 26 
 
 Commissioners' errors respecting Irish Rolls, ... ... 27 
 
 Sixth Allegation. 
 
 Admissions of Commissioners respecting text of Calendars, ... 28 
 
 Blunders and defects in text acknowledged by Commissioners, ... 29 
 
 Commissioners oppose Sir John Ronully and "the Irish Archivist" 30 
 
 Specimen of bold "official" allegations, ... ... ... 31 
 
 Discovery respecting Philip and Mary, ... ... ... 32 
 
 "Unfortunate Assumptions" of Commissioners, ... ... 33 
 
 Commissioners' attempt to ignore plagiarisms in the text of Ca- 
 lendars, ... ... ... ... ... ... 34. 
 
 Reade on " horse adapters" and literary thieves, ... ... 35 
 
 Seventh Allegation. 
 
 Further bold " o^aaZ" Certificates, ... ... ... 36 
 
 Previous execution of Calendars denied, ... ... ... 36 
 
 This statement refuted, ... ... ... . . , ... 37 
 
 Proof of former execution of Calendar extending to 17,214 pages, 37 
 
 Extract from Calendar officially certified to have never existed ! ... 38 
 
 Abstract of a Grant as printed in the Calendar of 1861, ... 38 
 
 !^ 
 
^ 
 
 Cordmis. vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abstract of same Grant as printed at pages 34 and 35 of old 
 Calendar, which the Rolls oflScials declare never to have been 
 
 executed beyond page 2^ \ ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 Superiority of old Calendar demonstrated, ... ... ... 39 
 
 Official attacks on " Archivist," ... ... ... ... 40 
 
 Statements on the subject of " omission," ... ... ... 40 
 
 Commissioners' certificate respecting their investigations, ... 41 
 
 Commissioners' certificate demolished, ... ... ... 42 
 
 Value and reliability of Commissioners' " Report," ... ... 42 
 
 Pernicious character of present Record system in Ireland, ... 43 
 
 Public inquiry demanded, ... ... ... ... 44 
 
 Impracticable proposals for amending the so-called Calendars, ... 45 
 
 Necessity for new Calendars, ... ... ... ... 46 
 
 " Inefficacious and unreliable" Calendars, ... ... ... 47 
 
 Different prescriptions for English and Irish Rolls, ... ... 48 
 
 Mr T. D. Hardy on the Close Rolls of England, ... ... 49 
 
 Strange recommendation by Commissioners, ... ... 49 
 
 Commissioners on Archivist's supposed errors, .... ... 50 
 
 „ on Irish names, ... ... ... ... 50 
 
 English Commissioners verstis O'Donovan, Larcom, and "Archivist," 51 
 
 Supposed error and oversight of " Archivist," ... ... 51 
 
 Error of Commissioners respecting Spenser, ... ... ... 52 
 
 Different treatment of English and Irish Archivists, ... ... 53 
 
 Continental opinion on this subject, ... ... ... 54 
 
 Necessity for new Record system for Ireland, ... ... 54 
 
 Concluding Observations, ... ... ... ... 55 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. Evidence respecting compilation of the now missing Calendars 
 
 of Patent and Close Rolls of Ireland, a.d. 1819-29, ... 57 
 
 II. Letters-Patent of Henry VIII. to Sir Dermod O'Seachnusaigh 
 or O'Shaughnessy, respecting lands and possessions in the 
 County of Galway, officially extracted from the Patent Roll 
 35 Henry VIII,, but totally omitted in the new " Calendars," 60 
 
^.V.^|f-- 
 
 X 
 
A LETTER, &c. 
 
 Dublin, May 1865. 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 More than two years have elapsed since, in March 1863, 
 I published a statement demonstrating that measures were 
 in progress to treat the Public Records of Ireland in a 
 mode unprecedented in any civilised country. 
 
 The circumstances were in brief as follows : — Without 
 having consulted any literary or scientific person conver- 
 sant with the subject. Government confided the translation 
 and editing of those most important documents — the 
 Patent and Close Rolls of Ireland — to a clerk in one of 
 the Dublin law courts, totally unknown in the world of 
 letters, who publicly announced, that he performed this 
 task "at intervals snatched from the labours of official 
 duties." 
 
 Two large volumes, entitled " Calendars of the Patent 
 and Close Rolls of Ireland, from the reign of Henry VIII. 
 to the end of that of Elizabeth," were thus published in 
 1861-62, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls in 
 Ireland, by authority of the Lords Commissioners of her 
 Majesty's Treasury in London. 
 
 To give official authority to these Calendars, a pamphlet 
 was circulated gratuitously at the Public expense, contain- 
 

 2 Character of the so-called " Calendars." 
 
 ing letters from the Master of the Rolls of Ireland, the 
 Ulster King-at-Arms, and some eminent lawyers, declaring 
 the Cixecution of these Calendars to be most creditable and 
 satisfactory. The details of this transaction were calcu- 
 lated not only to arouse the surprise and indignation of 
 scholars, but to excite serious apprehensions among the 
 Public. Portions of the contents of the so-called " Calen- 
 dars " had been taken, without acknowledgment, from pre- 
 viously published books ; and the other parts abounded 
 with almost every error and defect possible to exist in a 
 work of this class. Of the ludicrous character of the 
 translations, an idea may be formed from the editor having 
 rendered a stone bullock-pen into a city of the dead; a 
 flock of sheep into a wax candle; saddles into seals; a 
 ducking-stool into Saxon bondmen; and the town of 
 Aylsham in Norfolk into isinglass! In further defiance 
 of common sense, the editor, in his prefaces, assured the , 
 public that, in his translations into English from ancient 
 and obsolete language, he had preserved the original 
 orthography! The grants of lands were given, in these 
 volumes, in a style defective, misleading, and highly pre- 
 judicial to the public, as, in the majority of cases, the 
 Calendars did not mention all the lands granted, and seldom , 
 specified the counties or localities of those enumerated. 
 Such omissions, it was found, " might entail serious pecu^ 
 niary losses to individuals, since legal investigators, accept- . 
 ing these volumes as faithful indices to the Rolls, would 
 be misled into concluding lands to have clear titles, although ■ 
 in reality subject to heavy reversionary claims,, the entries j 
 of which on the Rolls are at present inaccessible to the 
 Public, in consequence of the defective mode in which the ^ 
 so-called ' Calendars ' have been compiled." The royal 
 letters, grants of titles, ofl&ces, pardons, ecclesiastical and 
 municipal documents, were also presented in defective and ■ 
 
 t ■ ■ . 
 
 •"." - -■*■■., 
 
 

 PublicicUion of " Record Revelations." 3 
 
 unreliable forms, in these Calendars, which thus failed to 
 fulfil any one of the requirements for which works of this 
 class are executed. 
 
 " It would be difficult," said an able writer, " to find a 
 parallel for the Calendars in wholesale plagiarism — difficult 
 to find a rival for them in ignoriance — difficult to find an 
 approximation to them in error. The robbery is of the 
 most sweeping kind ; the mistakes are of the most catholic 
 order, and trench with equal indifference on the hallowed 
 precincts of history, chronology, biography, and philology." 
 
 To arrest the progress of such proceedings, I published, 
 in 1863, under the title of " Record Revelations, a Letter 
 to the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury on 
 the Public Records of Ireland, and on the Calendars of 
 Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland, recently 
 published by their Lordships' authority, under the direction 
 of the Master of the Rolls of Ireland." In this pamphlet, I 
 alleged [1.] that " the prefaces to these two volumes, al- 
 though purporting to be the result of lengthened original 
 documentary researches, are, in the main, abstracted ver- 
 batim, without acknowledgment, from previously published 
 works; [2.] that the portions of the prefaces, not so ab- 
 stracted, ^are replete with errors ; [3.] that the annotations 
 are of the same character with the prefaces ; [4.] that the 
 prefaces evince ignorance even of the nature of Patent and 
 Close Rolls ; [5.] that the Calendar, or body of the work, as 
 here edited, is, in general, unsatisfactory, and defective for 
 either historical or legal purposes ; [6.] that the title-pages 
 are incorrect, as the volumes do not include a single Close 
 Roll ; [7.] that, alth^ough now given to the world as an 
 onginal work, portions of thiese Calendars were be/ore 
 printed, and the ^^ire prepared for the press, by the Irish 
 Record Commission, more than thirty years ago." 
 
 I announced, that the archivists of Ireland repudiated 
 

 ^^:- 
 
 4 Proceedings in House of Commons. 
 
 all connexion with this Calendar affair, in every step of 
 which they had been ignored, to the detriment of the 
 Public. " Justice," I wrote, " demanded that Government 
 should discontinue the issue, in the present discreditable 
 form, of these Calendars, abstracted without acknowledg- 
 ment from the labours of others." I added, that "the 
 sole question appeared to be, whether it might be more 
 desirable to cancel them entirely, or to pubhsh a supple- 
 ment exhibiting accurately the portions which have been 
 appropriated from other books, giving tables of the nume- 
 rous errata, and supplying, from a collation of the original 
 Rolls, the many important and serious deficiencies of these 
 volumes." 
 
 The circumstances of this case were brought before the 
 House of Commons in July 1863, by the Right Hon. Wil- 
 liam Monsell and Colonel F. P. Dunne. To the represen- 
 tations of these gentlemen, Mr F. Peel, Secretary of the 
 Treasury, replied, that " as to the text of the work, its 
 most important part, the editor's statement was satisfactory, 
 and was corroborated by the Deputy-Keeper of the Rolls, 
 [at Dublin,] whose testimony was unimpeachable. His 
 Calendar was quite complete, and without any omissions." 
 
 The editor's annotations and prefaces were frankly 
 deprecated by the Secretary of the Treasury as the pro- 
 duction of " a cobbler, blundering beyond his last," unqua- 
 lified to comply with the rules of Sir John Romilly, and 
 who consequently could not be intrusted with any work in 
 the English historical series.* 
 
 Mr Peel's statements were supported by two other 
 members, and much indignation was for the time expressed 
 by the Government officials against the " awjhivist," whom 
 they would have represented as much in the same position 
 
 * See these points explained in " Record Revelations," pp. 96, 97. 
 
Publication of "Record Revelations Resumed." 5 
 
 which the demented Don Quixote assigned to the Canon, 
 who burned his lying romances, and denied credence to 
 the achievements of Amadis and his compeers. "Then, 
 said Don Quixote, in my opinion, you. Canon, are the mad- 
 man, and the enchanted person, since you have set your- 
 self to utter so many blasphemies against a thing so uni- 
 versally received in the [official] world, and held for such 
 truth, that he who should deny it, as you do, deserves the 
 same punishment you inflict on those books when you read 
 them, and they vex you." 
 
 Every scholar in Ireland conversant with archivism felt 
 indignation at the attempt made, under official patronage, 
 to foist these Calendars upon the Public as a specimen of 
 Irish literary work. I trusted that the warning conveyed 
 in " Record Revelations " might prevent the continuation 
 of so improper a system. When, however, a third so-called 
 " Calendar " was, at the national cost, issued in defiance of 
 educated Public opinion, I deemed it my duty to again 
 come forward. Accordingly, in January 1864, 1 published 
 " Record Revelations Resumed : a letter to the Right 
 Hon. William Monsell, M.P., Colonel Francis P. Dunne, 
 M.P., and Colonel Fitz-Stephen French, M.P., on statements 
 recently made in Parliament on the Public Records of Ire- 
 land, and on the * Calendars of Patent and Close Rolls of 
 Chancery in Ireland,' lately published by authority of the 
 Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls 
 of Ireland." 
 
 In this pamphlet, I analysed and refuted every statement 
 reported to have been spoken in the House of Commons in 
 defence of the Calendars. By a further expose of the con- 
 tents of these volumes, I proved the case to be even worse 
 than at first described ; and, on behalf of the Public, chal- 
 lenged an open investigation by any competent and inde- 
 pendent tribunal. This second pamphlet, having augmented 
 
■,!!l«'5f?.. \»'»v-y.'* -;', .---V; r"*- - • . - ■: . -" - ---VV ^ -,■■■ -'■'" • ' *■ - ■'*'=<»-VW^:3?^>? 
 
 'p^^m^im^mrnw^: 
 
 6 JmA Archivists excluded from Inquiry. 
 
 the apprehensions in the Public mind of the pernicious 
 results of the Record system attempted to be imposed upon 
 Ireland, Government announced its intention of directing 
 an inquiry into the affair. An investigation by scholars, 
 in whose erudition and independence of Government the 
 Public of Ireland had confidence, was loudly demanded. 
 After the exposure of the official and legal certifications 
 respecting the " accuracy and completeness " of the Calen- 
 dars, it was supposed that the inquiry should be committed 
 to persons thoroughly conversant with Irish archivism. 
 Thus it was believed, that, on the nomination of the Com- 
 missioners, Government would have consulted such recog- 
 nised and independent authorities as the Royal Irish 
 Academy, and the Irish Archaeological Society, which not 
 only include the most eminent scholars of Ireland, but also 
 the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis of Kildare, the Earl 
 of Dunraven, Lord Talbot de Malahide, and Sir Thomas 
 Larcom. 
 
 When, however, it was announced, that the investigation 
 was to be made by two officers of the Rolls department in 
 London, the Public concluded, that I had been correct in 
 alleging the case to be one which would not bear the 
 scrutiny of any competent and unofficial tribunal. 
 
 This appointment was regarded as the more ominous, 
 since Mr Monsell in the House of Commons had stated 
 that "Ireland had now scholars whose reputation in 
 archaeology was European, and, to such of them as had 
 made the Anglo-Irish muniments their special study, 
 should be committed the superintendence of all Govern- 
 ment Record publications connected with that country." 
 
 The Irish Archaeological Society and the South-east of 
 Ireland Archaeological Society had presented memorials to 
 the Treasury, praying that the execution of any measures 
 connected with the Public Records of Ireland should be 
 

 
 '-.A? 
 
 Testimonies respecting Irish Archivism. 7 
 
 intrusted to such scholars. Blackwood's Magazine bore 
 testimony to the labour and merit of "the wonderfully 
 learned editions" produced by the Irish Archaeological 
 Society. The Commissioners themselves admit the erudi- 
 tion of Irish archivists in the following passage of their 
 Eeport, page 1 : — » 
 
 " We were specially instructed to inquire into the accuracy of certain 
 allegations contained in a pamphlet, entitled 'Kecord Revelations,' in 
 which the Irish Calendar of Mr Morrin is severely criticised for its 
 inaccuracies, omissions, and mistakes. These charges are numerous; 
 they are characterised by great ability, and have evidently been drawn 
 up by an author acquainted with his subject. In fact, we do not 
 remember to have seen, in England or in Ireland, any work of the same 
 nature in which so much critical knowledge of this kind has been dis- 
 played, or which indicates a greater familiarity with archaeological 
 studies. The ability with which this pamphlet has been written, the 
 deep interest it has excited everywhere in Ireland, the masterly and yet 
 popular way in which the topics in it have been handled, the stringent 
 criticisms to which it has subjected every page of Mr Morrin's work, 
 are an evidence of the keenness with which these subjects are pursued 
 in Ireland. Hey are also a proof of the importance attached to works 
 of this nature by Irish scholars." 
 
 At page 16, the Commissioners write : — 
 
 " We are equally anxious that the skill with which the archivist has 
 illustrated some of these obscure terms should not be deprived of its 
 just commendation. The terms are confessedly difficult ; the best glos- 
 saries aflfbrd very little help towards their elucidation ; and the true 
 meaning of them has been missed or misrepresented by able scholars. 
 So much greater is the praise due to the archivist for working out their 
 true solution, as he has done in a variety of instances." 
 
 And at page 21, they admit that the "archivist" has 
 mentioned no less than four instances of "documents refer- 
 ring to the poet Spenser alone, and another to the poet's 
 intimate friend, Lodwick Bryskett, disclosing facts un- 
 known to former biographers." 
 
•'S^-?«¥i^?WffWTPfW5if>^ ?>-^?^^ V v^"^ - '^™??^s?5!«^^raT5'R~*i™?^ 
 
 8 Appointment of Messieurs Hardy and Brewer. 
 
 The Commissioners to whom the investigation was in- 
 trusted by the Treasury were Mr T. D. Hardy, Deputy 
 Keeper of the Public Records, London ; and Mr J. S. 
 Brewer, also of the Rolls department there. As neither of 
 these gentlemen ever edited Irish Records, the Public 
 f ould not be expected to accept them as authorities on 
 Irish archivism, no matter how eminent their acquire- 
 ments might be in the departments of English history to 
 which they have devoted their attention. Such English 
 works are of a character too laborious and exacting to 
 admit their compilers or editors to engage in the long 
 and local studies requisite for a thorough comprehension of 
 so complex a subject as Irish archivism. Of this fact evi- 
 dence may be found in the works edited by Mr Hardy and 
 Mr Brewer in the series styled "Chronicles and Memorials 
 of Great Britain and Ireland." Many of the incidental 
 references to Irish affairs in these volumes are strangely 
 inaccurate, and a passage written by Mr Brewer has given 
 deep offence to Ireland. In his introduction to the works 
 of Cambrensis, Mr Brewer, alluding to that writer's nar- 
 rative of Irish affairs at the period of the Anglo-Norman 
 descent, wrote as follows : — 
 
 " Keferences to Julius Caesar and quotations from Ovid sound 
 strangely from the lips of Irish chiefs, who "were as innocent of all 
 scholarship as their descendants are, whom adverse fortune has driven 
 to find shelter in nooks and comers inaccessible to Saxon policemen."* 
 
 The Irish " chiefs " here alluded to are Roderic O'Conor, 
 Monarch of Ireland; Dermod MacMurragh, King of 
 Leinster ; and Donall, Prince of Osraighe or Ossory. That 
 
 * Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, edited by J. S. Brewer, 1861, voL i. 
 Preface, p, xlvi. — Published by the authority of the Lords Commis- 
 sioners of her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of 
 the Kolls of England. 
 
Mr Brewer on Irish History. 9 
 
 Roderic was not " innocent of all scholarship," would appear 
 from his Latin treaty a.d. 1175 with Henry II., of which 
 Dr Thomas Leland wrote : — " It is observable that Henry 
 treated with Roderic not merely as a provincial king, but 
 as monarch of Ireland." A Latin diploma from Roderic 
 to the order of Citeaux is still extant, together with a por- 
 tion of the Latin correspondence of his brother and suc- 
 cessor, Cathal, surnamed Crobh-dearg. The allegation 
 that MacMurragh was " innocent of all scholarship," is not 
 corroborated by the fact that we possess a large and 
 elaborately written vellum volume, compiled for him by 
 order of his tutor, Aedh MacCrimhthainn, described in old 
 local writings * as " the chief native historian of the men 
 of Leinster, in wisdom, intelligence, and the cultivation of 
 books, knowledge, and learning." We also possess Latin 
 instruments executed by King Dermod, and authenticated 
 with his seal. In a charter to a monastery which he 
 endowed in his town of Ferns, this Leinster " chief," whom 
 Mr Brewer supposed to have been " innocent of all scholar- 
 ship," wrote as follows, "with the assent of his princes 
 and nobles," stipulating that future abbots, and their suc- 
 cessors, before appointment by the bishop, should be pre- 
 sented to him or his representative : — 
 
 " Universis Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae filiis, Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, 
 Abbatibus, Comitibus, Baronibus, et omnibus hominibus, tarn clericis 
 quam laicis, Dermitius, nutu Dei, Rex Lageniensium salutem : Sciatis 
 quod ego, consilio et assensu, Principum et Optimatum meorum, dedi 
 et concessi, et hac mea cart4 confinnavi Deo et Beatae Mariae Vii^nis, 
 quam fundavi apud Femiam, et Canonicis ibidem Domino servientibus, 
 terras illas," &c. 
 
 During the middle ages, and subsequently, Latin was the 
 
 * " Betha ocus slainte . . do Aedh MacCrimlithain . . phrim-shen- 
 chaidh Laighen, ar gaes ocus eolus ocus trebaire lebur, ocus fessa, ocus 
 foghlomma." 
 

 r ■?* 
 
 ]0 Mr Brewer on the O* Conor Family. 
 
 ordinary language used by the Irish in their communi- 
 cations with the Continent and England. Latin, says an 
 old English chronicler, "they [the Irish] speak as a vulgar 
 language, learned in their common schools." Of one of the 
 chiefs, even in the remote district of Mayo, an English 
 Lord Deputy wrote : — " I found MacWilliam very sensible, 
 though wanting the English tongue, yet understanding the 
 Latin." 
 
 We may next inquire respecting the " chiefs' " descend- 
 ants, whom an English Commissioner for Irish Records 
 represents not only as " innocent of all scholarship," but 
 as " sheltering in nooks and corners inaccessible to Saxon 
 policemen." Roderic 'Conor's representative is the 
 O'Conor Don, a member of Parliament for the county of 
 Roscommon ; and his kinsman, Charles O'Conor, is the 
 acknowledged head of the Bar of New York. The erudi- 
 tion of one of Roderic's descendants, whom Mr Brewer 
 supposed to be " innocent of all scholarship," elicited the 
 encomium of Sir James Mackintosh. Treating of Dr 
 Charles O'Conor's work, entitled "Rerum Hibernicarum 
 Scriptores Veteres," extending to four large quarto volumes 
 of Gaelic writings with Latin versions. Mackintosh wrote : 
 — " The Irish, though they are robbed of their legends by 
 this authentic publication, are yet by it enabled to boast, 
 that they possess genuine history several centuries more 
 ancient than any other European nation possesses, in its 
 present spoken language. They have exchanged their 
 legendary antiquity for historical fame. Indeed, no other 
 nation possesses any monument of its literature, in its pre- 
 sent spoken language, which goes back within several cen- 
 turies of these chronicles." 
 
 This tribute to the authenticity and historical importance 
 of these documents, it has been observed, came with more 
 authority from such a writer as Mackintosh, "whose torn- 
 
Ur Brewer on Irish Gentry. 11 
 
 mand over the wide domain of history enabled him fully to 
 appreciate any genuine addition to it." 
 
 The second "chief, "-whose descendants are represented 
 by Mr Brewer as hiding "from Saxon policemen," was 
 Dermod MacMurragh, King of Leinster. Every English 
 genealogist, however, knows that Dermod's daughter be- 
 came the wife of Richard Fitz-Gislebert, surnamed 
 "Strongbow," and that their descendants married the 
 heads of the noblest families of England. 
 
 The present Irish representative of King Dermod is Art 
 MacMurragh Kavanagh, Esquire, of Borris Idrone, in the 
 county of Carlow, "whose pedigree," wrote the accurate 
 O'Donovan, " is as well proved as that of any sovereign in 
 Europe." So far from hiding "from Saxon policemen," 
 this descendant of an Irish " chief " retains a valuable por- 
 tion of the lands of his ancestors ; and during the past year 
 published an account of a voyage to Albania in his yacht, 
 the " Eva," named after the daughter of his ancestor, King 
 Dermod, described by Mr Brewer as "innocent of all 
 scholarship." 
 
 A descendant of Donall, Prince of Ossory, the third 
 "chief" referred to by Mr Brewer, became Baron of Upper 
 Ossory, and was the favourite companion of King Edward 
 VI. of England, several of whose letters to him are still 
 extant. His descendant, the Right Honourable John 
 Wilson Fitz-Patrick, is not a fugitive "from Saxon police- 
 men," but a member of her Majesty's Privy Council in 
 Ireland, Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of the Queen's 
 County, in which is comprised pait of Ossory, which he in- 
 herits from the Irish " chief " who, according to Mr Brewer, 
 was " innocent of all scholarship." The Irish, at home and 
 abroad, justly regard such matter, introduced into historical 
 works by an editor paid from the Imperial Treasury, as 
 little, if anything, less than premeditated insult, for circu- 
 
=■:» 7. -.=-----. --^jr; 
 
 
 12 English Commissioners on Irish History and Langtiage. 
 
 lation through the world, and that with the greater injus- 
 tice, as partly effected through the funds derived from the 
 very country thus irrelevantly subjected to the narrow virus 
 of a mere local or Cockney prejudice. 
 
 This feeling has not been diminished ; since in another 
 portion of the same work of Mr Brewer the following pas- 
 sage occurs, which has been construed into an expression 
 of contempt and aversion for subjects at all connected with 
 the Irish and their history :-— 
 
 " We would gladly have spared half-a-dozen whole lengths from his 
 [Cambrensis'] gallery of Irish worthies and their conquerors, the M'Der- 
 mots, the Rodericks, even Strongbow himself, for a lively kit-cat of such 
 a Pope as Innocent by such a hand as Giraldus."* 
 
 The sentiments thus enunciated with reference to Irish 
 history are by the Public of Ireland associated with a 
 passage in the Report we are about to consider, in which 
 Mr Brewer and Mr Hardy write as follows of the old Irish 
 language : — 
 
 " For the translation or deciphering of the Patent Eolls [of Ireland], 
 it [the Irish language] is no otherwise valuable than a knowledge of 
 Anglo-Saxon is to the student of mediaeval Latin or of State Papers 
 written in the reign of Henry VIII. or Queen Elizabeth. ... In fact, 
 precisely the same qualifications, and no others, are required for calen- 
 daring the Patent RoUs of Ireland as are required for calendaring the 
 English Patent Rolls of the same period." — RepoH, p. 5. 
 
 There is scarcely, however, a grant of lands registered 
 on these Rolls of Ireland which does not present endless 
 and curious combinations of Irish words and names, many 
 of which were in " the songs of the poet and the legends 
 
 * Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, edited by J. S. Brewer, M.A., 1861, voL 
 i., Preface, p. bdx. London : Published by the authority of the Lords 
 Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury, . under the direction of the 
 Master of the Rolls of England. It may be mentioned here that no 
 such name as "M'Dermot" occurs in Cambrensis. 
 

 Historic Antecedents of England and Ireland Ignored. 1 3 
 
 of the saint when the names of Normandy and of Norman 
 were unknown." The allegation of the Commissioners, that 
 a knowledge of Irish for deciphering the Patent Rolls of 
 Ireland is no otherwise valuable than Anglo-Saxon might 
 be to the student of the documents of England of the six- 
 teenth century, could only emanate from a nescience or 
 ignoring of the historic antecedents of the two islands. 
 
 William of Malmesbury tells us, says Hallam, that the 
 Anglo-Saxons gave up all for lost after the one battle at 
 Hastings. Old Robert of Gloucester chronicles that the 
 "high men of England" were the "folk of Normandy," and 
 "the low men the Saxons." The Anglo-Saxons were 
 stripped of their lands — starved, or obliged to sell them- 
 selves as slaves for food ; their tongue was proscribed, and 
 that of their French conquerors became the language of 
 the court, the schools, and the law of England. The case 
 of Ireland was diametrically different. The Anglo-Nor- 
 mans there became, to a great extent, identified and fused 
 with the natives, whose language, laws, and customs they 
 adopted. Nor was it till 1603 that the entire island was 
 even nominally brought under English jurisdiction. We 
 have a record of a Parliamentary declaration having been 
 made even in Dublin in the Irish tongue ; and official Irish 
 interpreters were maintained by the English Grovernment 
 so late as the seventeenth century. 
 
 Returning to the views enunciated by the Commissioners 
 on the subject of language, we read as follows at page 5 of 
 their Report : — 
 
 " In fact, precisely the same qualifications, and no others, are required 
 for calendaring the Patent Rolls of Ireland as are required for calen- 
 daring the English Patent Rolls of the same period." 
 
 In that great work, however, the Ordnance Survey of 
 Ireland, Sir Thomas Larcom found that English engineers 
 
14 English Commissioners versus Continental Scholars. 
 
 could not settle the orthography of the Irish names to be 
 used on the maps, until aided by scholars conversant with 
 the native history, language, and antiquities of Ireland. 
 Adolphe Pictet of Geneva, in his work, crowned by the 
 Institute of France, has borne testimony to the high value 
 of these Irish topographic labours. Schleicher and Ebel 
 have also demonstrated to Celtologists the absolute neces- 
 sity for a collation of the middle and comparatively 
 modern Irish with the older forms, for fixing phonology 
 and establishing an organic orthography. Such names as 
 those found among the Irish denominations on the Patent 
 Rolls are, in the eyes of these eminent German scholars, of 
 more scientific importance in this department of linguistic 
 palaeontology than either the Gaulish inscriptions or the 
 Kymric dialects. The philological and historical value 
 of such materials is also sufficiently well known to those 
 conversant with the labours of Forstemann, Gliick, Butt- 
 mann, De Smet, and Isaac Taylor. Regarding the ques- 
 tion in a mere utilitarian light, we find the opinion of the 
 Commissioners at variance with the following testimony 
 given before Parliament by the learned J. H. Todd, of 
 Trinity College, Dublin, respecting the importance of the 
 orthographic department of the Ordnance Survey of Ire- 
 land. 
 
 " I may mention in a case that has come under my own knowledge, 
 in reference to the property of Trinity College, I have frequently found 
 considerable difficulty in consulting the deeds, charters, and ancient 
 records connected with our property, from not being able to identify thd 
 spellings of the Irish names of parishes and boundaries mentioned in 
 those records with the modem names." 
 
 Sir William Petty, who executed a Survey of Ireland, . 
 acknowledged the difficulties which the Irish names im- 
 posed upon him. Swift tells us that the Irish denomina- 
 tions of lands were little suited to an English mouth, and 
 
Novel Linguistic Doctrines. 15 
 
 that, in trials of appeals to the House of Lords at London, 
 the English lawyers found so much difficulty in repeating 
 the names, that if the plaintiff or defendant were by, they 
 would never be able to discover which were their own 
 lands. The position that scholars competent to edit the 
 Rolls of England would be fully qualified to elucidate 
 those of Ireland is as untenable as the view put forward 
 by these Commissioners, that a knowledge of the old lan- 
 guage of a country is not necessary for editors of its 
 muniments! The greatest scholars of France, where 
 archivism has become an exact science, would not assume 
 to deal with documents of the provinces with which they 
 were not locally conversant. An archivist, qualified to 
 edit the Patent Rolls of England, would, in encountering 
 the Irish denominations and semi-Gaelic combinations on 
 the Rolls of Ireland, find himself as much bewildered as 
 Moliere's Monsieur de Porceaugnac, when accosted in 
 Languedocien by Lucette, or as were the English Govern- 
 ment reporters when O'ConneU addressed his audience in 
 Irish. An instructive commentary upon such arguments 
 as those enunciated by the Commissioners is to be found 
 in the expansive and philosophic views expressed as fol- 
 lows to the Royal Irish Academy, by the late John M: 
 Kemble, the historian of the Anglo-Saxons, and one of th€ 
 greatest scholars and antiquarians ever produced by Eng- 
 land : — 
 
 "Now, gentlemen, let us, with the full spirit of an enlightened 
 patriotism, devote ourselves to the illustratiou of our own antiquities ; let 
 US love them, and, loving them, labour to bring them to light ; but let 
 ua.apt believe that they are all jsre have to learn, or that they convey all 
 that can be taught. 
 
 " Let us look upon them only as links in one great chain, which em- 
 braces many nations, and many periods of human culture, which has 
 nqplaqe of its own, unless considered in co-ordination with other links 
 in a still greater chain, but the fuU elaboration of which is necessary 
 

 16 Opinions of the late J. M: Kemhle. 
 
 before its cosmic relation can be well and thoroughly comprehended. 
 Let us be sure that we are not exclusive, but comprehensive, in what 
 we do ; and let us, above all things, never lose sight of this great truth, 
 that the interests of man have at all times led to a close communion 
 between the several divisions of his race, — that nothing can be dis- 
 sociated in history, and that nothing must be dissociated in the study 
 of archaeology. 
 
 " While labouring to perfect our own portion of the work, let us look 
 out abroad, and encourage our fellow-labourers to perfect theirs ; and 
 let us make them feel as we feel ourselves, that the work can only be 
 profitably done when all men are called to lay their hands to it." 
 
 It might be unjust, however, to leave the reader under 
 an impression that the narrow views which the Commis- 
 sioners so infeUcitously admitted, — perhaps unwillingly, in 
 endeavouring to frame an apology for their department, 
 — are such sentiments as they would have enunciated in a 
 matter in which they were not officially pressed. Of this 
 we have an evidence in their observations on the Carew 
 Manuscripts at Lambeth, which are of the same age with 
 the Patent Rolls under consideration, and specially con- 
 nected with Ireland. In their Report on these papers, 
 treating of a matter in which their department was un- 
 compromised, they expressed, as follows, an opinion iden- 
 tical with mine, and totally opposite to that given in their 
 apology for the Calendar, as will be seen on comparison 
 of the parallel passages. 
 
 Messrs Hardy and Brewer on the Patent and Close RoUs 
 of Ireland. 
 
 " It also seems to us that, in the pamphlet referred to [' Record Reve- 
 lations'], statements are made of a nature to confuse the public mind, and 
 disparage Mr Morrin's qualifications for his task, by insisting upon his 
 ignorance of the ancient Irish tongue ; and it is assumed, more than once, 
 that none but * competent Irish scholars ' are fitted to deal with public 
 rolls and records. Now the documents upon which Mr Morrin was em- 
 ployed are written exclusively in the Latin or English language, as used 
 
Commissioners contradict themselves. 
 
 17 
 
 in official documents of this class in the reign of Henry YTII. and his 
 successors. We have not been able to discover a single roll in which 
 either the Irish language was lised,* or for the correct translation or in- 
 terpretation of which a knowledge of the Irish language was indispensable. 
 That some acquaintance with the ancient Irish is a great acquisition, 
 we do not deny ; but for the translation or deciphering of the Patent 
 Rolls, it is no otherwise valuable than a knowledge of Anglo-Saxon is to 
 the student of mediaeval Latin or of state-papers written in the reign 
 of Henry VIII. or Queen Elizabeth. As might have been expected ; 
 for these documents emanated, in both countries, either from the English 
 sovereign or from his council in Ireland.t Irish language was the very 
 last they would have employed. In fact, precisely the same qualificar 
 tions, and no others, are required for calendaring the Patent Rolls of 
 Ireland as are required for calendaring the English Patent Rolls of the 
 same period. And if this author, [the archivist,] by insisting on Mr 
 Morrin's ignorance of .the Irish language, wished his readers to infer 
 that those Rolls were written in Irish, or contained Irish*phrases, for 
 the correct interpretation of which a knowledge of Irish was indispen- 
 sable, he has led them into a grave error." — Report, pp. 4 and 5. 
 
 Messrs Hardy and Brewer on the Carew Papers at Lam- 
 beth — 
 
 " The Carew Papers preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library in Lam- 
 beth Palace contain most important materials for the history of Ireland, 
 and extend from the reign of Henry the Second to the end of the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. . . . That collection in its present state, and which 
 Todd describes as ' an inestimable mass of the most important evidence,' 
 consists of ancient chronicles and histories of Ireland, Journals of the pro- 
 ceedings of the Lord Lieutenants of Ireland, their instructions, state- 
 papers, copies of proclamations, acts of Parliament, orders of council, 
 ordinances, commissions, memorials, petitions, decrees, interrogatories 
 
 * Yet, on turning to a facsimile prefixed to the second volume of the 
 Calendar, we find on it an entry in the Irish character ! More than one 
 Patent Roll of Ireland might be mentioned on which entries in the Irish 
 character appear. 
 
 + The emanation of any Patent or Close Roll from the King or his 
 Council would be a brilliant discovery in archivism ! The Rolls never 
 emanated from either of these sources, and on them are registered many 
 documents unconnected with either King or Council. 
 
 B 
 
■• .:"."■' '.^if^^'f^.V^^.-' 
 
 18 Commissioners admit their want of Knowledge. 
 
 and examination of witnesses in political and criminal proceedings, cer- 
 tificates, declarations, estimates, perambulations, royal charters and 
 letters patent, private grants, indentures and agreements, plans of 
 castles and fortifications, matters connected with the army in Ireland, 
 maps and siurveys of towns, counties, and provinces, original warrants 
 and letters, (among them a valuable collection in the handwriting of 
 Secretary Cecil,) &c., many of which are copies of important documents 
 not now known to exist. . . . 
 
 " Oiving to the difficulties attendant on Irish names of persons and 
 places, we think that the editorship of such a Calendar should be intrusted 
 to a competent Irish scholar, not only familiar ivith Irish history 
 generally, hut vfith the names of individuals and localities referred to in 
 , the correspondence." — Report upon the Carte and Carew Papers by 
 T. D. Hardy and J. S. Brewer, London 1864, pp. 11-13. 
 
 On an important section of this Calendar inquiry the 
 Commissioners acknowledge their deficiency of informa- 
 tion. One of the charges against the Calendars was that 
 of extensive plagiarism. Under this head I showed that 
 the editor had appropriated, without acknowledgment, 
 many entire pages from the works of Irish archaeologists, 
 an acquaintance with whose labours is indispensable for 
 comprehending archivistic questions connected with Ire- 
 land. Of this department the Commissioners admit as 
 follows, page 19 of their Report, that they did not possess 
 any knowledge : — " We do not know, in the absence of 
 proof, how far we are to accept as literally true his [the 
 archivist's] assertion that 'seven-eighths' of Mr Morrin's 
 prefaces are * extracted verbatim' from previously printed 
 books .... and but for the labours of the archivist in 
 pointing them [the plagiarisms] out, we should never have 
 detected them." 
 
 I demonstrated by references, that much of the prefaces 
 and text of the Calendars is composed of plagiarisms from 
 the volumes of the Irish Archaeological Society, some of 
 whose works, in this department, stand as models of arch- 
 
^.^■•.- ;••■"•: ■• r.i'&.'?5i:'?r- 
 
 Evidence of Commission's' defective Information. 19 
 
 ivism. Such are the "Statute of Kilkenny," edited by 
 Hardiman ; the Ordinance for the State of Ireland, in the 
 reign of Edward I., edited by the late Rev. Richard Butler; 
 the Chartulary of All Hallows, Dublin ; the Indentures of 
 the Lords of Connaught with Elizabeth ; and various other 
 documents cognate with Patent and Close Rolls. So little, 
 however, are the Commissioners conversant with Irish 
 archivism, that they totally ignore these works, which were 
 extensively plagiarised in the Calendars ; and, referring 
 to the Royal Irish Academy and the Irish Archaeological 
 Society, they with a marvellous boldness write as follows 
 at page 4 of their Report : — 
 
 " Hitherto, at all events, amongst all their services to the literature 
 of Ireland, they [the Academy and Irish Archaeological Society] have 
 never come forward as experts in this kind of Record lore." 
 
 . Having premised thus far, we come to the consideration 
 of the "Report of Messrs Brewer and Hardy, laid be- 
 fore the Treasury by Sir John Romilly, in reference to the 
 publication of the Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls 
 of Ireland." From this document, we learn that these 
 gentlemen, during their mission to Ireland, carried on their 
 work altogether in concert with the officials of the Rolls 
 Court, Dublin, whence the arraigned Calendars had been 
 issued. Throughout their Report, they refer to none but 
 officials or parties directly or indirectly implicated in the 
 Calendar transaction ; nor is there proof given of their hav- 
 ing consulted any recognised unofficial authority in Ireland. 
 In some parts of the Report, the Commissioners profess to 
 deal with the matter impartially ; but the entire tenor of 
 the production is that of an apology or defence of the 
 Rolls department against extern criticism, — reminding ^s 
 of the litigant who declared he only desired "a fair and 
 impartial witness — on his own side of the question." The 
 
20 Apologetic Character of " Report" 
 
 Commissioners introduce into their Report several pass- 
 ages tending to leave an impression that they had to deal 
 not with a public question, but with a private controversy. 
 They even go so far as to represent that " the archivist" 
 was actuated by " animosity ; " that he has " caught at 
 every opportunity" of rendering a Dublin law-clerk " odious 
 and ridiculous ; " that he has displayed an anxiety to 
 "crush him at all hazards ;" and, as his "accuser and op- 
 ponent," evinced " indifference as to the means employed" 
 for accomplishing that purpose ! In this they seem for- 
 getful of their situation and their duties as paid public em- 
 ployes; and they actually ask, at page 13 of the Report, 
 "By what right" are charges brought against the editor? 
 They even denounce, (page 15,) as "attacks" upon the 
 Rolls officer, the specimens given by the archivist, exhibit- 
 ing the defective mode in which the grants of lands appear 
 in the so-called Calendars. But they totally ignore Mr 
 Monsell's reference, as follows, in the House of Commons, 
 to the true position of the matter : — 
 
 " Every one acquainted with the character of the Master of the KoUs 
 of Ireland, should feel that he had acted, as he thought, for the best, 
 and the editor was said to have creditably discharged the duties con- 
 nected with his clerkship in the Courts. He [Mr Monsell] had no wish 
 to deal severely with the editor, who might eflSciently fulfil the duties of 
 his situation, as a clerk, in the office of the Eolls Court, but the Calendars 
 demonstrated his inability to elucidate or edit ancient muniments." 
 
 Nor do the Commissioners bring forward the following 
 specific statement made by me at page 89 of " Record 
 Revelations," setting forth the objects which impelled me 
 to enter upon this task, " namely, to do justice to lahourers 
 whose works have been unfairly appropriated ; to vindicate 
 the real historic literature of Ireland; to arrest the mis- 
 direction of a well-intentioned national expenditure ; to indi- 
 cate the proper steps to be taken to remedy the present 
 
Unsuccessful attempts to divert attention. 21 
 
 neglected and precarious condition of the great body of the 
 Irish Public Records ; and to let the world see the true ob- 
 stacles which impede the production of accurate and solid 
 historical works in this part of the empire" 
 
 Had the Commissioners been more conversant with Irish 
 intelligence, \\iey might have known, that their attempts 
 by personalities to divert attention from the main points at 
 issue would be regarded as an exhibition of weakness, and 
 as a mere rehash of the pithy instructions given by a soli- 
 citor to his lawyer, who, on opening his brief found only 
 the following words : — " A bad case — no defence — abuse 
 plaintijff's attorney ! " 
 
 The Commissioners essay also to prejudice their readers 
 against " the archivist," by alleging, at page 18 of their 
 Report — 
 
 " It was on the presumption of the superior skill of the archivist, and 
 his superior fidelity in consulting the originals, that his criticisms gained 
 credit among Irish scholars. They would have attdched much less im- 
 portance to his censures had they been aware that these criticisms were, 
 in a great degree, based on presumptive evidence only, and that the 
 ^archivist, in accusing Mr Morrin of unfaithfulness to his originals, had 
 never consulted those originals himself." 
 
 They appear, however, to have ventured this and other 
 statements on the " presumption " that those among whom 
 their Report was circulated might not refer to " Record 
 Revelations," at page 61 of which I wrote as follows : — 
 
 " The most conclusive mode of testing the accuracy of the entries in 
 the Calendars would be by collating them with the original KoUs of 
 which they are alleged to be abstracts ; but such a course is precluded 
 by the official intimation quoted at page 6 [of 'Kecord Eevelations'], 
 that the paid keepers of these documents * have not time to attend to * 
 historical inquiries. Relying, however, on independent sources, I shall 
 examine the Calendars in their principal departments — grants of lands 
 and other hereditaments, of offices, and of pardons." 
 

 22 ~ Official Combinations. 
 
 The Commissioners should have mentioned, that the 
 Patent and Close Rolls at Dublin are practically in the 
 personal charge of the editor of the Calendars : and they 
 acknowledge that during their investigation they "had 
 to keep him constantly employed in producing the docu- 
 ments required." At page 15 of the Report, the Commis- 
 sioners admit that the observations of the " archivist," on 
 confessedly obscure terms, " display much research and 
 acuteness." This attestation will be considered but an 
 inferior tribute to his sagacity, when we shall see in the 
 sequel that the Commissioners themselves have come 
 nea/rly to the same conclusions with him after an examina- 
 tion of the documents which they allege that he dealt with 
 only through " presumptive evidence." 
 
 For the defence of the Rolls department, the Commis- 
 sioners strain every point, and have recourse to a variety 
 of elaborate subtleties, devised, no doubt, with the aid of 
 experienced lawyers and able special pleaders : 
 
 " To put to flight the man,^whose labour would 
 To their dark shades let in Heav'n's golden ray."* 
 
 Such a strong ofl&cial organisation for the defence of 
 error would remind us of a circumstance mentioned by 
 Antoine Hamilton, the inimitable Irish author of the 
 M^moires de Grammont : " Sir," said the Chevalier de 
 Grammont, " the Prince de Cond^ besieged Lerida ; the 
 place in itself was nothing ; but Don Gregorio Brice, who 
 defended it, was something." 
 
 The Commissioners, however, although filling twenty- 
 three folio pages with copious verbiage and circumlocution, 
 arrive at many results, little different from those which I 
 put forward in my first pamphlet. The chief points which 
 the Commissioners contest are as follows : — 
 
 * Edward Fairfax. 
 
Indefensible Character of Pre/aces admitted. 23 
 
 I. They declare, that the archivist was wrong in that 
 part of his seventh allegation in which he stated that 
 Calendars of the same Patent and Close Rolls were " pre- 
 pared for the press by the Irish Record Commission more 
 than thirty years ago." 
 
 II. They distinctly deny, that any entry registered on the 
 Rolls which they examined has been omitted in the so- 
 called Calendars. 
 
 These allegations of the Commissioners shall be disproved 
 in due sequence. I shall now recapitulate seriatim my 
 original charges, and exhibit the mode in which they are 
 treated in this Report or apology for the Rolls department. 
 
 Allegations I: and II. 
 
 " That the Prefaces to these volumes, although purporting to be the 
 result of lengthened documentary researches, are, in the main, abstracted 
 verbatim, without acknowledgment, from previously published works ; 
 that the portions of the Prefaces not so abstracted, are replete with 
 errors." 
 
 These charges are not contested by the Commissioners, 
 who, at page 19 of the Report, write as follows, under the 
 head of " Objections to Prefaces and Notes : " — 
 
 " The Prefaces of the two volumes, for Mr Morrin was requeded by 
 the Government to add no Preface to the third volume, extend to 117 
 pages. If it is intended that this restriction shall remain in force, we do 
 not see that we are called upon to interpose our judgment between Mr 
 Morrin and his opponent ; the Government has in effect already decided 
 the question. At best it is a literary question." 
 
 The decision of the Government here alluded to must be 
 regarded as a full admission ; but their refusal to pay for 
 the Prefaces does not exculpate them from having printed, 
 sold, and circulated at the Public expense, literary property 
 unjustly appropriated. The original portions of the Prefaces 
 
24 New Official Doctrines on Law of Property. 
 
 abound with errors calculated, as has been shown, seriously 
 to mislead, those who accept them under the Government 
 stamp ; which stamp has also been set upon the blunder- 
 ingly libellous passages against Trinity College, and its 
 learned librarian. 
 
 The doctrine above laid down respecting piracies must, 
 if sanctioned by the Master of the Rolls, tend to justify 
 every kind of appropriation hitherto deemed contrary to 
 law. If an English Chancery tribunal decide, that the ap- 
 propriation of mental property is at best but " a mere literary 
 question," we shall, no doubt, find ere long, horse -stealing 
 justified as a matter of equine taste ; gold robbery as a 
 matter of bullion taste ; and bank robbery as a mere 
 question of banking taste. In such cases, following the 
 present precedent laid down by the Rolls officials, the law 
 will, we presume, not be called upon to " interpose its judg- 
 ment " between the plunderers and their victims. 
 
 It, however, can scarcely be supposed, that the doctrines of 
 these Commissioners, on the subject of literary property, are 
 sanctioned by Sir John Romilly. No special pleading could 
 reconcile the Public to attempts at justification of such 
 piracy as that by which part of the literary inheritance 
 of the orphans of the late eminent and self-sacrificing 
 scholar, Dr John O'Donovan, has been appropriated in 
 these Calendars. On a somewhat similar case, — that of 
 Newberry's piracy of Cook's voyages, — Charles Reade 
 wrote as follows : — 
 
 " Captain Cook sailed twice round the world, and made great dis- 
 coveries. But in his next voyage he was murdered by some savage 
 islanders, and left his log and his MSS, In that he was a sailor his 
 nation honoured, and wept him ; in that he was an author, his nation 
 rifled his dead body, and swindled his widow and children : c'est de 
 rigueur. The voyages pirated by Newberry were Cook's voyages. 
 
 " Compare now the acts of labour that created that copyright, with the 
 
»,-?3 
 
 Charges agavast Annotations not contested. 25 
 
 one paltry act of labour employed to steal it. The gallant seaman did 
 not skim his facts off another man's milk He wrought for them, soul 
 and body. He encountered wet, cold, tempests, dangers innumerable, to 
 write this book. He gathered every page of it with his life in his hand. 
 A miserable badger that never stirred a mile from his hole, sits down 
 by the fireside, and with a few days' easy work, shortens and condenses 
 the bare pages that years' labour, fortitude, courage, and suffering had 
 produced, and undersells them hopelessly. Any judge worthy to sit, 
 except in a pillory, would have seen the lion's blood, and sweat, and 
 life on those sacred pages, and would have revolted against the badger 
 and his barefaced fraud. But no, these judges could only sympathise 
 with the brainless pilfering vermin that prey on brave and honest 
 authors. The pseudo labour of the badger stealing by the fireside the 
 travelled lion's mighty labour, and his sweat, and his blood, that they 
 could see and reverence ; it reminded them of a pettifogger. The lion 
 and his labour, and his rights, were too big for these puny judges to see 
 at all. In their hands the balance had but one scale, and into it they 
 put the dirt, and flung the gold out of court. The French law is just 
 the same at bottom as the English law ; only the French has been in- 
 terpreted by judges worthy of the name." 
 
 Third Allegation. 
 
 " That the Annotations are of the same character with the Prefaces." 
 
 To this charge, and my analysis of the Annotations, 
 extending from page 50 to 55 of " Record Revelations/' an 
 answer is not attempted beyond the following, in which no 
 effort is made to disprove even one of the ludicrous errors 
 which I pointed out in this section : — 
 
 " As regards notes, we think your Honour [Sir John Romilly] has 
 wisely imposed restrictions in this respect upon the editors employed by 
 you in England, and that where notes are allowed, they should be con- 
 fined to the briefest explanations of difficulties as to dates, or readings, 
 or meanings of words, or occasional references to important documents 
 necessary for the elucidation of the text. They should not expand into 
 archaeological disquisitions only incidentally connected with an editor's 
 work. In some instances of this kind Mr Morrin seems to have been 
 more generous than prudent." — Report, page 19. 
 
26 Editorial Ignorance of Rolls not disproved. 
 
 As considerable portions of the so-called annotations 
 have been pilfered from other writers, it remains to be 
 explained how such appropriations can be consistent with 
 generosity, unless we accept a new interpretation of the 
 well-known line — 
 
 " Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." 
 
 Fourth Allegation. 
 
 "That the Prefaces evince ignorance even of the nature of Patent 
 and Close Kolls.'' 
 
 At page 59 of "Record Revelations" I showed, as fol- 
 lows, that the six lines of the Preface to the first volume 
 of the Calendars, page xxxvii., descriptive of the docu- 
 ments forming the material of the work, contained four 
 grave errors : — 
 
 " 1. Patent Rolls were not, [as stated in the Calendar,] * open 
 grants,' but merely the enrolments or copies of such grants. 2. Close 
 Rolls were never styled ' claiises ' till so named in these Calendars. 
 3. Close Rolls did not [as stated in the Calendar] contain * sealed ' 
 writs from the Crown, but only abstracts of such documents : indeed, it 
 would be utterly impracticable to roll up, as here mentioned [in the 
 Calendar,] a number of parchments, each bearing an impression in wax 
 of a Great Seal. 4. Close Letters, confounded in this Calendar with 
 Close Rolls, were not, as above stated [in the Calendar,] accessible and 
 directed solely to 'oflScers ; ' but, on the contrary, ' Literae Clausae ' were 
 commonly addressed to any individuals to whom the sovereigns desired 
 to transmit their orders on either public or domestic matters." 
 
 None of these errors is defended by the Commissioners, 
 who put forward, by way of reply, the following statements, 
 in which they essay to merge my fifth charge, which was 
 "that the title-pages of the Calendars are incorrect, as 
 the volumes do not include a single Close Roll : " — 
 
 " As to the charge of the archivist that Mr Morrin is ignorant of the 
 distinction of Patent and Close Rolls, and that in prefixing this title to 
 

 Commissioners Errors respecting Irish Rolls. 27 
 
 his book, which does not contain a single Close Roll, he has given in- 
 disputable indications of his incompetency, we have only to observe 
 that, if the critic had studied the originals, he would have discovered 
 that this title is found on the Roll itself, 5 Edw. VI., viz., * Rotulus 
 Claustis Fatentium Gancellar. Hibern. de anno R. Edwardi Sexti 
 quinto.' His dissertation on the diflferences of the Close and Patent 
 RoUs, and the inference he endeavours to establish to the prejudice of 
 Mr Morrin, are inapplicable. True in theory, and as applied to the 
 more regular practice prevailing in England, in Ireland' the essential 
 distinction between Close and Patent Rolls was disregarded, and the 
 series edited by Mr Morrin continued to be known and called by the 
 name of ' Close and Patent Rolls,' even when no Letters Close were 
 entered upon them." — Report, p. 19. 
 
 My statement, that the Calendars do not contain a single 
 Close Roll, is proved by the editor himsel/f who has given 
 the title of *' Patent Roll" to every Roll described by him — 
 with the exception of the Roll above referred to by the 
 Commissioners, which he heads merely as follows, at page 
 234 of his first volume, without stating it to be either 
 Patent or Close : — 
 
 " 5 Edward VI." 
 
 Nor could the Commissioners point out in those Calendars 
 any Roll to which the title of " Close Roll " or " Patent and 
 Close Roll " has been prefixed by the editor himself. The 
 Commissioners, from want of knowledge of Irish archives, 
 have fallen, in this section, into the serious error of stating 
 that "in Ireland the essential distinction between Close 
 and Patent Rolls was disregarded." Had they been con- 
 versant with Irish Records, they could not have committed 
 this blunder ; the extent of which will be understood when 
 I mention that the following " Close RoUs" are still extant 
 even in the Rolls Office, Dublin, where the Commissioners 
 carried on their investigations! — Edward II., 4 Close 
 Rolls ; Edward III., 2 Close Rolls ; Richard II., 7 Close 
 Rolls ; Henry IV., 2 Close RoUs; Henry V., 1 Close Roll ; 
 
i:':=vi^r^ 
 
 28 Admissions of Commissioners respecting Text. 
 
 Henry VL, 9 Close Rolls ; Edward IV., 1 Close Roll ; 
 Henry VIL, 1 Close Roll: Edward VL, 1 Close Roll"; 
 Elizabeth, 2 Close Rolls ; Charles I., 2 Close Rolls. 
 
 Sixth Allegation^ 
 
 " That the Calendar or body of the work, as here edited, is, in 
 general, unsatisfactory, and defective for either historical or legal pur- 
 poses." 
 
 That these conclusions are practically admitted by the 
 Commissioners will appear from the following passages of 
 their Report : — 
 
 " We agree with him [the archivist] in thinking that wherever lo- 
 calities and subdenominations are found in the originals they ought to 
 appear in the abstracts. Such notices of lands and their occupiers are 
 of the utmost importance to the topographer, the historian, and the 
 lawyer; and if omitted are apt, as the archivist observes, to mislead 
 the VvihMc:'— Report, p. 13. 
 
 "We think, therefore," they continue, "that in this 
 respect Mr Morrin's work does not come up to the require- 
 ments of modern scholars" (page 14.) They further 
 acknowledge that the editor "injudiciously omitted, in 
 certain instances, specifications of lands and localities 
 which are found in the original Rolls." '\ At page 11 the 
 Commissioners write : — The archivist's " other objections 
 apply to matters of detail or diflferences of opinion as to 
 the plan and execution of the work ;" and they add, "m 
 many of his remarks we agree with him." " We admit," 
 they continue at page 1^^ that the editor " has been guilty 
 of errors which we would gladly see avoided; we admit 
 also that the archivist has done good service to the cause 
 of historical literature in pointing out those errors." 
 
 * The fifth allegation has been discussed with the fourth, at pp. 26-27. 
 
 + This it was impossible to deny, in face of the flagrant deficiencies 
 exhibited in the comparisons of the Calendar grants, at pages 143-46 
 of " Kecord Revelations." 
 
"f^* 
 
 Blunders and Defects of Text achnowledged. 29 
 
 The apologists having thus achnowledged the defects and 
 omissions of the so-called " Calendars," proceed at page 19 
 to consider "in what way" these "omissions and errors 
 may best be remedied," and suggest a " table of corrigenda 
 for the ordinary blunders of misreading, or mistranslations, 
 or errors in date." These, with the omissions of portions 
 of entries, we may infer are of vast extent, as the Com- 
 missioners write of them and of a proposed index of names, 
 which are omitted from the Calendars, that the prepara- 
 tion of " such a work will no doubt impose much labour " 
 on the editor. "We therefore," they add, "recommend 
 that he should have aid, in the compilation, if he require it, 
 and that the remuneration should be on a scale commen- 
 surate with the arduousness of the tosh." 
 
 It is almost superfluous to observe here, that every one, 
 having occasion to use official record Calendars, knows 
 that they should not only be scrupulously correct, but above 
 suspicion. A single error is sufficient to destroy confidence 
 in a work of this class, since no inquirer can tell whether 
 the portion he may have to refer to is not one of those 
 mentioned by the Commissioners as characterised by 
 *' omissions, blunders of misreading, mistranslations, or 
 errors in date." On the latter section of these admitted 
 errors, we have the opinion of Sir Harris Nicolas, expressed 
 as follows : — " If history should be studied as a science, 
 that mankind may learn from the past what to expect in 
 the future, it necessarily follows that all the facts which 
 history records ought to be referred, with mathematical 
 precision, to their proper dates ; for if one of them be 
 misplaced, the inferences drawn from it will be founded on 
 false premises.^ . . 'Uncertainty,' as Lord Chief- Justice 
 Coke truly observes in reference to this subject, *is the 
 mother of confusion ;' and," adds Nicolas, "he might have 
 found in Falsehood another parent for Confusion." 
 
,vr-'**"- ■ ■ • . . , - ■'- .-■" ;^''i'!"'KKSi^:*' '?;"-'■:>/ >;• •'♦• ■ ^r 
 
 30 Commissioners (yppose Sir J. Romilly and " Archivist" 
 
 « 
 
 The inconsistencies into which the Commissioners are 
 betrayed in their attempts to apologise for the Rolls depart- 
 ment in this Calendar transaction may here be further 
 illustrated. They admit, as we have seen, that these 
 Calendars do *' not come up to the requirements of modern 
 scholars ;" and they state that to supply even partially 
 their defects and omissions will be an arduous task, involv- 
 ing heavy labour. At page 16, however, after having 
 acknowledged the editor's errors also in translations and 
 decipherments, they write as follows : — 
 
 " But we must altogether demur to his [the archivist's] conclusion, 
 that Mr Morrin's failures in this respect prove his general incompetency 
 to perform the task intrusted to him, and vitiate all the rest of hia 
 book." 
 
 Here the Commissioners contradict the views on these 
 points approved of by the Master of the Rolls in England, 
 to whom the Report is addressed. In demurring to my 
 conclusion, they demur to that of Sir John Romilly, whose 
 " Instructions to Editors," as follows, are published under 
 the superintendence of one of the Commissioners, Mr T. 
 D. Hardy himself, as Deputy Keeper of the Public Records 
 of England : — 
 
 ** The Master of the Kolls [in England] considers that, without super- 
 seding the necessity of consulting the originals, every editor ought to 
 frame his Calendar in such a manner that it shall present, in as con- 
 densed a form as possible, a correct index of the contents of the papers 
 described in it. He considers that the entries should be so minute as to 
 enable the reader to discover not only the general contents of the 
 originals, but also what they do not contain. If the information he not 
 sufficiently precise, — if facts, and if names he omitted or concealed under 
 a vague and general description, — the reader will he often misled; he will 
 assume that where the abstracts are silent as to information to be found 
 in the documents, such information does not exist ; or, he will have to 
 examine every original in detail, and thus one great purpose tvill have 
 been lost for which these Calendars have been compiled.^' 
 
: "■S'^'f^C^^:- ■ . 
 
 Specimen of bold Official Allegations. 31 
 
 It is thus shown, even on the evidence of the Commis- 
 sioners themselves, that I was fully justified in my allega- 
 tion that " the Calendar or body of the work, as here 
 edited, is, in general, unsatisfactory, and defective for 
 either historical or legal purposes'' 
 
 I shall now exhibit two specimens of the strangely bold 
 mode in which the Commissioners profess to meet some of 
 my charges. At page 12 of their Report we read as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " Passing, then, from the charges of plagiarism and omission, we come 
 to the third head, viz. : * That the grants of titles and offices given in 
 these volumes are defective and valueless, as they omit the important 
 clauses of the patents.' This charge appears to us to have been made by 
 the archivist without consulting the original rolls. He assumes that the 
 originals, of which the abstracts are given by Mr Morrin, contained 
 * numerous clauses of the highest interest,' omitted by that gentleman, 
 and brings three instances to prove his assumption. His instances and 
 his assumptions are equally unfortunate. In the first of the three in- 
 stances alleged hy him, the patent had been already set forth in detail by 
 Mr Morrin, (Calendar I., p. 370,) and it would have been unpardonable 
 in Mr Morrin to have repeated it ; of the second (16 and 17 Eliz.) 
 • Mr Morrin had informed his readers (p. 554) that the original roll did 
 not exist, but that the deficiency had been supplied by him from an old 
 official Calendar; the same remark applies to the third. We must 
 report, therefore, that this charge, like the former, is without any foun- 
 dation." 
 
 Here the Commissioners distinctly state, that in the first 
 of the three instances alleged by him (the archivist) " the 
 Patent had been already set forth in the Calendars, vol. 
 i., p. 370, and that it would have been unpardonable in the 
 editor to have repeated it." Turning to page QQ of " Record 
 Revelations," which they profess to quote, we find that the 
 Patent, which I alluded to as having been calendared in a 
 useless mode, was that of Thomas, Earl of Sussex, to the 
 office of Lord Deputy in Ireland under Queen Elizabeth. 
 

 32 Discovery respecting Philip and Mary. 
 
 To invalidate my statement, the Commissioners distinctly 
 declare, as above quoted, that this charge is without any 
 foundation, and that this Patent of Queen Elizabeth had 
 been already set forth in detail at page 370 of the first 
 volume of the Calendars. What can the Public think of 
 the accuracy of these Commissioners, when, on referring 
 to the page of the Calendar which they have quoted, it will 
 be found that the Patent there given is not one, as they cer- 
 tify y of Elizabeth, hut of Philip and Mary ? So far indeed 
 from being a Patent of Queen Elizabeth, as they allege, the 
 Calendar, with its usual blundering, has in the version of 
 this Patent of Philip and Mary given it as if issued entirely 
 in the name of the King instead of in the names of the King and 
 Queen. It would certainly be a new fact in English history, 
 overlooked by those English Record Commissioners, if it 
 could be shown that, during the lifetime of Queen Mary, 
 the English Governors for Ireland were, as these Calendars 
 represent, appointed solely in the name of her husband, 
 Philip of Spain. After this specimen it might be deemed 
 superfluous to consider the Commissioners' remarks re- 
 specting the grounds on which they pronounce against 
 the second and third instances in this section, brought 
 by the archivist to prove what they style his " unfortunate 
 assumptions." As a matter of curiosity, however, and to 
 exhibit the complications of this "meddle and muddle" 
 transaction, I shall give another specimen of the mass of 
 error in which they are here inextricably involved. 
 
 " Of the second, (16 and 17 Elizabeth,) Mr Morrin," the 
 Commissioners above write, " had informed his readers, p. 
 554, that the original Roll did not exist." Here it is inti- 
 mated by the Commissioners that there is no Patent Roll 
 of the 16 and 17 years of Elizabeth. But in the Preface 
 to the second volume of the Calendar, page vii., the editor 
 asserts as follows, that this Roll is extant ! 
 
••■^fKir 
 
 " Unfortunaie Assumptions " of Commissioners. ^ 
 
 « After this [the 26th of Henry VIII.] the Patent Eolls are preserved 
 in almost a regular series with the following exceptions. Of the reign 
 of Elizabeth there is no Patent Roll of the 15th year ; of Charles I. the 
 third part of the 10th year, 1635, has been lost or mislaid for many 
 years." 
 
 The Commissioners above (page 31) assert that there is 
 no foundation for my statement, as follows, that the three 
 Letters-Patent referred to contain 
 
 " Numerous clauses of the highest interest, illustrating regal and vice- 
 regal prerogatives j the state of the English Government in Ireland ; 
 the exact nature of the offices conferred, and descending so far into 
 details, as to prescribe minutely even the fashion and emblazonry of 
 the baton of the Queen's Marshal in Ireland," — Record Revelations, 
 page 66. 
 
 They declare the foregoing statements to have been 
 made by the archivist without consulting the original 
 Rolls, and that " his instances and assumptions are equally 
 unfortunate." That the "unfortunate assumptions" are 
 altogether on theif' part is further proved by the following 
 extract from the Patent of Elizabeth's Marshal for Ireland, 
 above alluded to by me, but which they would lead their 
 readers to believe does not exist ! — 
 
 " Damns etiam ac per praesentes, pro nobis, haeredibus et successori- 
 bus nostris, concedimus praefato Comiti Essex, quod ipse et quilibet 
 deputatus suus, ratione dicti officii, habeat, gerat, et deferat infra regnum 
 nostrum Hibemise, tarn in prsesentia nostra, hseredum et successomm 
 nostrorum, quendam baculum aureum ad utrumque finem de nigro 
 anmulatum, et cum signo armorum nostrorum haeredum et successorum 
 nostrorum in superiori fine dicti baculi, et cum signo armorum dicti 
 Comitis Essex in inferiori fine ejusdem baculi, insculpto et omato, 
 licit^ et impund absque impetitione nostra haeredum vel successorum 
 nostrorum, vel justiciariorum aut officiariorum seu aliomm ministrorum 
 nostrorum haeredum vel successorum nostrorum quorumcumque." 
 
 We might after this well exclaim — 
 
 " Who 'U wage war with Bedlam or the Mint ? " 
 
■--; ^:; fnv"?i^'^!?3^ 
 
 34 Attempt to ignore Plagiarisms in Text. 
 
 The following may, however, be cited as a second specimen 
 of the bold system by which the Commissioners seek to 
 ignore some of my plainest statements, presuming appar- 
 ently that their readers might not refer to " Record Revela- 
 tions." At page 8 of their Report they write as follows : — 
 
 " For this assertion, ' that a la7'ge portion of the text ' of these 
 volumes is composed of plagiarisms, the archivist is satisfied with com- 
 paring half a page at the commencement of the first volume with an 
 imperfect Calendar of Henry VIII., prepared by the Irish Commis- 
 sioners in the year 1830. In relation to the rest of Mr MoiTirCs first 
 volume, he brings no proof whatever of the accuracy of his assertion; none 
 to the second or tlie third. Admitting, by way of argument, that the 
 charge was proved in relation to this half -page of the first volume^ we 
 think that the archivist was not justified on so slender a p^'oof in his 
 y sweeping assertion * that a large portion of the text ' was plagiarised. 
 We think, also, that a writer anxious to do justice to his opponent, or 
 conduct a controversy within the ordinary bounds of fairness, would 
 have hesitated before pronouncing such a decision, until he had further 
 tested the truth of his assertion, or enabled his readers to do so by pre- 
 cise indications of such plagiarisms i^ the general body of a work ex- 
 tending to many hundreds of pages. To have substantiated his charge, 
 he was bound to show that simiLar appropriations might be detected 
 elsewhere beyond that of a solitary fragment. 
 
 " But upon examining more minutely into the subject, it will be found 
 that these so-called plagiarisms consist of similarity of words and 
 phrases used in describing the contents of a few formal and unimport- 
 ant documents of no great length ; where, if rightly described, it would 
 hardly be possible for any two calendarers to vary much in their modes 
 of expression; nay more, in proportion as they understood their work, and 
 epitomised such documents accurately, both would proceed in the same 
 manner, and adopt the same formal expressions, as such expressions are 
 determined by the essential clauses of the document. If there were any 
 great variation between them, the one would be right and the other 
 wrong." 
 
 How superfluous it would be to occupy space by replying 
 to such apparently circumstantial assertions may be judged 
 when I mention, that so far from having been satisfied with 
 comparing half a page, as above stated, my mere " enu- 
 
^T>- ^55;*-^ 
 
 Reade on " Horse-adapters'' and Literary Thieves. 35 
 
 meration of some of the plagiarisms in the text" of Vols. I. 
 and II. of the Calendars, with specimens in double columns, 
 extends from page 124 to 134 of " Record Revelations Re- 
 sumed." Among these " plagiarisms," passed over by the 
 Commissioners, is a document in Irish and English, appro- 
 priated verbatim from the late Dr John 'Donovan, scarcely 
 to be justified by such arguments as the foregoing — that a 
 calendarer totally ignorant of Irish adopted a mode of 
 translation exactly similar with that of so eminent a Gaelic 
 scholar! 
 
 On the wisdom of the concluding lines in the above 
 extract from the Report there can scarcely arise any 
 question ; and I have no doubt that my readers will ap- 
 preciate the profundity of the doctrine so solemnly laid 
 down by the Commissioners, that where two calendarers 
 differed essentially, "the one would be right and the 
 other wrong !" 
 
 For these vast plagiarisms in the text, an exculpation 
 has not been adduced even so low as that urged in pallia- 
 tion of the Government toleration of the pilferings in the 
 Prefaces — namely, that the " Treasury refused to pay for 
 them." On the piratical adaptations of many documents 
 in the text of the Calendars proved* by me to have been 
 before printed at the -Public expense, we are supplied with 
 a commentary by a vigorous English advocate of literary 
 honesty : — " A clever horse-stealer has been known to dock 
 a stolen horse's tail, trim his mane, paint him, and sell 
 him to the owner for a strange horse. This last is a cut 
 quite above an adapter : yet I have never heard that it 
 was accounted to the horse-adapter for righteousness, or 
 patted on the back by Law." 
 
 * See " Enumeration of some of the plagiarisms in the text of the 
 Calendars," — ^Record Revelations, pages 125, 126. 
 
» ' r. ■*: -t^-"^^ 
 
 36 Further hold Official Certificates. 
 
 Seventh Allegation. 
 
 " That, although now given to the world as an original work, portions 
 of these Calendars were before printed, and the entire pi:epared for 
 the press by the Irish Kecord Commission, more than thirty years ago." 
 
 This charge is copiously discussed by the Commissioners, 
 who reprehend the archivist for even insinuating that the 
 Public had been twice taxed for the same work. Mainly 
 on the faith of certificates from the editor of the Calendars 
 and another Dublin Rolls official, they report that no 
 Calendar had ever been prepared of the Patent and Close 
 Rolls under consideration, with the exception of twenty-four 
 pages of the reign of Henry VIII., printed under the late 
 Record Commission for Ireland. Impartial observers 
 might consider that such interested witnesses should 
 scarcely be introduced ; but here again we are recalled to 
 a scene from the " Tragedy Rehearsed," where Puff de- 
 clares, " Lud, sir ! if people were not always connived 
 at in a tragedy, there would be no carrying on any plot in 
 the world." 
 
 The Commissioners conclude, that the Calendar alluded 
 to by the archivist never was executed, as they could not 
 find it, a style of reasoning somewhat similar to that of the 
 father of " Tilburina," who declared to his mad daughter, 
 
 " The Spanish fleet thou canst not see — because 
 — It is not yet in sight !" 
 
 In this important matter the Commissioners appear not 
 to have been fairly dealt with by those on whose represen- 
 tations they relied. The Public, however, are satisfied to 
 attach more credence to a document, which I print in my 
 Appendix I. as signed and sealed by Lord Chancellor 
 Manners, the Earl of Charlemont, the Bishop of Kildare, 
 Sir William MacMahon, Master of the Rolls for Ireland, and 
 
Evidence ofpi'eviovs Bxecution of Calendars. 37 
 
 LordNorbury, Chief Jtistice of the Common Pleas. These 
 five personages, by writiDgs authenticated with their signa- 
 tures and seals, certified to the King and Council of Eng- 
 land in the year 1819, that under the Irish Record Commis- 
 sion, a Calendar of all the Patent and Close Rolls of Ireland 
 to the end of the reign of Elizabeth had been completed, con- 
 taining upwards of 12,000 pages ; that considerable progress 
 had been made in the revision of same for printing, and that 
 indices of names and places containing 5il2 pages had been 
 concluded. 
 
 If, accepting the decision of these Commissioners, we 
 conclude, on the certificate of two clerks of the Dublin 
 Rolls Office, that the English Lord Chancellor Manners, 
 and the Scotch Bishop of Kildare, combined with the Irish 
 Sir William MacMahon, Master of the Rolls, and Lord 
 Norbury, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, to declare a 
 direct and substantial falsehood, we are met by another 
 obstacle. The declaration of these five personages is sus- 
 tained by a certificate, also printed in my Appendix, from 
 the six following gentlemen, constituting the " Committee 
 of Observation under the Record Commission :" — William 
 Ball, Roderick Connor, Steuart King, John Brinkley, 
 Francis Corbett, and William Shaw Mason. Brinkley, one 
 of these gentlemen who are now represented as having 
 combined to indorse a faslehood respecting the Calendars, 
 was an Englishman of the most accurate and precise 
 mathematical mind. He held the post of Professor of 
 Astronomy in Trinity College, Dublin, became Bishop of 
 Cloyne and President of the Royal Irish Academy. 
 
 We now learn, from the Report of Messrs Brewer and 
 Hardy, that this great Calendar of 17,412 pages has dis- 
 appeared, and that I was wrong in conjecturing that so 
 valuable and costly a piece of Public property remained 
 in " safe and responsible custody !" r 
 
"■■T 
 
 Jl.-J'If^'-SS 
 
 38 Extract from Calendar " ceHified " not to exist. 
 
 Messrs Brewer and Hardy were so misled as not only 
 to declare that "there is sufficient reason for believing 
 that no such catalogue " ever existed, but they denounce 
 the archivist as unscrupulous, for alleging that it was 
 compiled in a "superior and satisfactory form ;" and for 
 having instituted a comparison between a work which 
 they allege he had never seen, and the labours of Mr 
 Morrin ; and this they ascribe to the anxiety of the former 
 to depreciate the work of the latter. 
 
 What, however, will the reader think when I state that 
 the three specimens in " Record Revelations Resumed," 
 (p. 143 to 146,) showing the vast omissions of the new 
 Calendar, are tahen verbatim from pages 36 and 37 of the 
 old printed Calendar, in the Public Library of the Royal 
 Irish Academy, Dublin, but which the Rolls Officials certify 
 to have never been printed beyond page 24/ As a further 
 expose of these official certificates, and to exhibit the 
 alleged superiority of the new work over the old Calendar, 
 I annex a fourth specimen taken from page 34 of the 
 latter, which the Rolls Officials certify to have never been 
 printed beyond page 24. 
 
 Abstract of Grant as Printed in the Calendar op 1861. 
 
 " 61. Surrender unto the King, by the Bishop and Clergy of Meath, of 
 all procurations, in recompense and satisfaction of the parish church of 
 Loghsewdy, and the chapels of ClonecaUy, Bonowne, and Oghwall, 
 parcels of the church of Loghsewdy, March 16, 36°." — ^Vol. I., p. 111. 
 
 Abstract of Grant as printed at pages 34 and 35 of old 
 Calendar, which the Commissioners declare never to 
 
 HAVE been executed BEYOND PAGE 24. 
 
 [The Italics denote the omissions of the Calendar of 1861.] 
 
 " LXI. — 18. Grant by Edward, Bishop of Meath, and his clergy, to 
 the King and his successors for ever. — The folloiving procurations, viz. 
 47». 8d, issuing out of the late abbey, monastery, or house of Duleke, 
 and all the churches united and appropriated to said abbey ; — out of the 
 
K^\ 
 
 Superiority of old Calendar demonstrated. 30 
 
 late priory or monastery of Kenles, and the chtirches of Ti-iMelkeran and 
 Aula Lapidea, and all other appropiiate churches of the said priory, 
 15s. Aid. ; — out of the priory or monastery of St Peter, near Trym, and 
 the churches of Newton, near Trym, Rathregan, Athsy, Galtrym, Churches- 
 town, Ardsallaghe, Raihtayne, Roherteston, Kylheggan, Laskyn, St 
 Thomas, of Loughsewdy, Eneskoy, and all others annexed to the said 
 priory, £10, 19*. id.;— out of the late priory of St John, near Trym, the 
 churches of Tullaghennok, Fynnor, Arrendell, and all others thereto an- 
 nexed, 14*. 4o?.y — out of the late hospital, monastery, or house of St John, 
 of Drogheda, and all the churches thereto united, &s. 8d, Ir. ; — ovi of 
 the late priory of theHoly Trinity, of Lesmollm, and its churches, £ 4, Ir. ; — 
 out of the late abbey or monastery of Odder, and its churches, 13s. id, Ir.; — 
 out of the late abbey or monastery of Clonarde, and the church Killean 
 and allotherits churches, £1, 8s.; — out of the late priory of Ballybogan, and 
 the churches of Ballybogan, Kylbi'id, Crinegedaghe, Kylbrid Weston, and 
 all other its churches, £4 ; — out of the late monasttry of Trysternaghe, 
 and tlie churches of Trysternaghe^ Lynleyn, Leyghyn, and other its 
 churches, £6, 7s. id. Ir. ; — out of the late priory, monastery, or cells of 
 Duleke and Colpe, £5, 6s. 8d.; — out of tlie late priory of Fower., and tlie 
 churches of Power, Peghini, DorsynkUl, Paghill, Cowley, and other its 
 churches, £5, 5s. ; — out of the late abbey or monastery oftJie B. V. Mary, of 
 Trym, and the churches of Clonarde, Kyldake, &c.,S,2, 10s, id.; — ovi of 
 the churches of Scryne, Kilcame, Alomney* Doweston, Daveston, Kyllene, 
 and all others in the diocese of Meath united or appropriated to St 
 Mary's Abbey, Dublin, £2, 13s. id.; — out of the churches of Dunamore, 
 Rathouth, Grenoke, Kylleglan, Donsaghlen, Trevet, Balmaglassen, and all 
 others in said diocese belonging to the abbey of Thomas Cotirt, Dublin, 
 £i, 6s. 8d. ; — out of the late abbey of Mellyfaunt, and all its churches, £\, 
 lis. / — out of the late abbey ofNovan, and the churches ofNovan, A rdbrac- 
 can, Ballieske, Kylsheny, Clonemaduffe, and all its churches, £5, 3s. id.; 
 out of the late priory of the B. V. Mary, 'de Urso,' near Drogheda, and 
 all its churches, 5s. 8d,; — out of the late priory, or house of Kylke/nny, and 
 all its churches, 13s. id. ; — out of the late priory, or house of Loghsewdy, 
 and all its churches, £2 : — amounting in all to £61, 7s. 8d., Ir., — 
 yearly: which the Bishop gives up to the King /or ever, in full satisfac- 
 tion and requital of the parish church of Loghsewdy, in Westmeath 
 Co.\ and the chapels of Clonecally, Bonowne, and Oghwall, mem- 
 
 * From this locality Sir William Somerville takes his title of Baron 
 of Athlumny. 
 
40 Official attacks on '' Archivist y 
 
 bers of the said churches of Loghsewdy ; and also of all the messuages, 
 lands, tithes, oblations, alterages, profits, possessions, and hereditaments, 
 spiritual and temporal, in and of the fields and t^wns of Loghsewdy, 
 Sawlysshe, Molemyaghe, Ballyncorro, Moyaghen, Clonnecalle, Forgeny, 
 Kylmaghan, Newcastell, Crevaghmore, Bonowne, Oghewall, Gortmare, 
 Kycoman, Donemore, Ledossan, Ballycanofe, Gregan, Moghnxighe, ' le 
 Dmjonen^ Marre, Clonekein, Cloncallan, Rathmore, Lekeyll, and Cre- 
 vagh^ggs, and elsewhere, members and parcels of said church and chapels, 
 to he united, annexed, and appropriated to the Bishoptic and See of 
 Meath.—16 Mar. 36th." 
 
 After the preceding exhibition of the position of the 
 Commissioners in the present section, the reader will feel 
 indignant, that they should have assailed me as follows on 
 this point, at page 9 of their Report : — 
 
 " There is sufficient reason for believing, as we shall show presently, 
 that no such catalogue ever existed as that to which the archivist re- 
 fers ; but, supposing that there had been, before he ventured to charge 
 Mr Morrin with reproducing it * in an imperfect and comparatively 
 valueless mode,' the archivist ought at all events to have taken the re- 
 quisite means for substantiating his assertion by an actual comparison 
 of this Calendar with Mr Morrin's ; otherwise the charge assumes the 
 nature of a calumny." 
 
 We next come to consider the subject of omission. At 
 page 61 of " Record Revelations," I wrote — 
 
 " The comparatively limited number of grants of lands and heredita- 
 ments registered in these volumes demonstrates conclusively that either 
 the Calendars are very incomplete, or the Patent Kolls themselves 
 incredibly defective in their contents ; and here we look in vain for 
 various important Irish grants, passed during the reigns of Henry 
 VIIL, Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth." 
 
 Again, at page 140, 1 continued on the same point — 
 "I have to observe that no justification can be offered for the 
 omission of the vast number of important grants unnoticed in these 
 volumes, which purport to be not only ' Calendars of the Patent and 
 Close Rolls of Chancery of Ireland,' hut also to supply such chasms as 
 may exist in these documents hy the introduction of extraneous matter, to 
 the enormmis extent exhibited under the head of ' Plagiarisms in the text.' " 
 
 It will be seen that I mentioned above, that when ex- 
 
Commissioners Certificate respecting their Investigations. 41 
 
 traneous matter had been introduced to fill chasms in the 
 Rolls, such important grants as those which I indicated 
 should not have been omitted. The Commissioners, how- 
 ever, with the appareirt object of weakening my authority, 
 write at page 6 that " he [the archivist] positively and re- 
 peatedly accused the editor of omitting from his Calendars 
 [entire] entries of great importance found upon the Rolls." 
 They admit (page 6), that the value of the Calendars would 
 he entirely destroyed if the "charge of omission" which they 
 deem the most formidable, should he estahlished. By this they 
 mean the omission of any entire entry existing on the Rolls, 
 since they have, as we have seen, acknowledged that various 
 important portions of entries have been omitted. On this 
 subject they continue as follows, at page 6 : — 
 
 " It is impossible, we think, to deny thai, the plain and obvious purpose of 
 these remarks [of the archivist] is to charge Mr Morrin tuith having been 
 guilty of unpardonable neglect and carelessness in omitting from his Calen- 
 dars entries of great importance found upon the Bolls. We have to state 
 
 THAT WE COULD DISGOVEK NO FOUNDATION FOR THESE STATEMENTS." 
 
 We have here a distinct and solemn certificate, thai no 
 important entry existing on the Patent and Close Rolls in 
 question has heen entirely omitted in these Calendars. 
 
 This is a statement on the accuracy of which not only 
 depends, as the Commissioners themselves admit, the 
 question whether the Calendars are entirely valueless or 
 not, but on it must also turn th£ value to he attached to 
 th^ Report itself. At page 2 the Commissioners declare 
 that they examined " every Roll separately ;" subjected the 
 Calendars "to the most strict and searching scrutiny; col- 
 lated every one of the entries word for word with the 
 originals ; extending their inquiries in this way to 300 
 pages in the first volume, to 213 in the second, and to 200 
 in the third." The result of their inquiries, they assert, is 
 founded on a careful and precise examination of the 
 
42 Commissioners' Gertijicate demolished. 
 
 Calendars and Rolls. Having thus brought to a point the 
 question respecting the worth of the Calendars and of the 
 Commissioners' Report, I shall now produce conclusive 
 evidence of the truth of the charge of omission and of the 
 inaccuracy of their certificates. On the Patent Roll of 
 Ireland for the year 1543-4 is an important entry recording 
 the grant of an entire territory of about 34,000 acres in 
 the county of Galway, including manors, lordships, towns, 
 and townlands, to Sir Dermod O'Shaughnessy or O'Seach- 
 nusaigh. That family was, in the seventeenth century, 
 deemed in Connaught second only to the house of Clan- 
 rickard ; and members of it have attained eminence in 
 church, state, and army, not only in Ireland, but in France, 
 India, and Australia. The grant referred to should have 
 appeared in the Calendar as the thirty-eighth article of 
 the Patent Roll of the thirty-fifth year of Henry VIII., 
 on which it is registered. The so-called "complete" ab- 
 stracts of the contents of that Roll extend from page 101 
 to 105 of the first volume of the Calendar of 1861, but no 
 entry of the patent to Sir Dermod is to be found there or in 
 any part of that work! That this patent to O'Shaughnessy 
 exists on the Roll is placed beyond all question by the copy 
 of it now printed in my Appendix II., from that certified 
 by the Deputy-Keeper of the Bolls at Dublin, as transcribed 
 officially from the Roll above mentioned ! 
 
 I have thus established conclusively the charge, by 
 proving which, in the words of the Commissioners them- 
 selves, the " value of the Calendar would be entirely de- 
 stroyed." The accuracy and reliability of their Report, which 
 has cost the country £310,* may now be readily estimated. 
 
 . * "Miscellaneous and temporary objects ordered by the House of Com- 
 mons, 2d March 1865, page 20. Mr Hardy and Professor Brewer, ex- 
 amination of Calendars of Irish Records, prepared by Mr Morrin, L.310." 
 
Pernicious Chcuracter of present Record System. 43 
 
 After the appearance of my first pamphlet, the Deputy- 
 Keeper of the Rolls at Dublin gave his solemn certificate 
 that the Calendars " were quite complete, and without omis- 
 sions;" and this document was produced in the House 
 of Commons by Mr F. Peel, who accepted it as " unim- 
 peachable testimony." My second pamphlet having de- 
 molished this certificate, the Deputy-Keeper of the Rolls at 
 London certifies, with his colleague, that there are numer- 
 ous omissions of portions of grants, but that no entry has been 
 entirely omitted. The second certificate I have now proved 
 also to be incorrect by evidence under the hand of the very 
 official who pledged himself to the Treasury thai the Calen- 
 dars were "quite complete, and without any omissions!" 
 
 " Nothing canst* thou to damnation add 
 
 Greater than that ! " 
 
 What is to be thought of a system under which grants 
 of property may not only be practically, and with impunity, 
 expunged from the records of the realm, but the revenue 
 of the Empire expended in propping up such courses, by 
 publishing elaborate official certificates of a character to 
 bar all inquiry, and assailing, in language such as the fol- 
 lowing, any scholar who attempts to raise his voice on 
 behalf of truth, honesty, and the Public '? — 
 
 " We admit that the latter [the editor of the Calendars] has been 
 guUty of en'ors which we would gladly have seen avoided; we admit 
 also that the archivist has done good service to the cause of historical 
 literature in pointing out those errors. At the same time, we cannot 
 see without pain and regret his aiudety to crush Mr Morrin at all 
 hazards, and indifference as to the means employed for accomplishing 
 this purpose. He (we use the singular for convenience only, not 
 knowing whether there be one or more authors of the pamphlet in ques- 
 tion) has, with the same unsparing severity hurled every kind of charge 
 against the Calendars, whether they were true or false, weighty or 
 trivial, and has throughout shown himself more hnsty to prefer than 
 able to substantiate his accusations. Such methods of attack may 
 
44 Public Inquiry demanded. 
 
 triumph for a time, but that triumph is deariy bought which brings 
 lasting discredit upon the author ; and we trust, after the careful 
 examination we have made of Mr Marring Calendars and the charges 
 of his opponent, all of which we have most minutely examined with tlie 
 originals, that Irish scholars will be better able and more willing to do 
 justice to both parties." — Report of Messrs Brewer and Hardy, page 18. 
 
 The matter I have now proved is of such a serious 
 nature, that if brought forward at the commencement of 
 the present publication it should have been regarded as 
 conclusive on the character of the Report. It was, however, 
 deemed more desirable to place it in its present position, 
 after the exhibition of the modes in which the Commis- 
 sioners have dealt with my charges against the Calendars. 
 I now repeat my demand for a public investigation of the 
 entire affair by competent and unofficial Irish archivists, 
 and feel satisfied their verdict will be that the Calendars 
 should he cancelled as not only worthless, but 7nisleadin^, and 
 that the entire work must be done over a^ain. Hesitation or 
 refusal on the part of the Government to institute such an 
 investigation will be properly estimated by the Public. 
 
 We may next consider the recommendation made by the 
 Commissioners, on " what way the omissions and errors of 
 these Calendars may be best remedied." On this point 
 they write as follows, at page 26 : — 
 
 " The main substantial objection aflFecting the utility of Mr Morrin's 
 Calendars is the omission of localities and subdenominations of lands 
 mentioned in the Rolls. We therefore propose that Mr Morrin should 
 compile a complete index of aU names of persons and places mentioned 
 in the Rolls, whether found in his Calendars or not ; in other words, 
 a perfect Index Nominum et Locorum, from the reign of Henry VIII., 
 where his work begins, to the end of the reign of Charles I.; this index 
 to be made applicable to the volume, page, and number of the entry of 
 Mr Morrin's own Calendars. Such an index will be of incomparable 
 advantage : it will at once supply all the omissions of which the archivist 
 complains. . . . For the ordinary blunders of misreading, or mistransla- 
 tions or errors in date, it will be sufficient for Mr Morrin to add a table 
 
IT'-^ 
 
 •-(^ 
 
 Proposals for amending Calendars. 45 
 
 of corrigenda, especially where these corrections cannot be made, as we 
 anticipate many of them can be made, in the index we propose. We 
 may observe that such an index as we have here suggested, though 
 somewhat unusual, is not without precedent. The University of Ox- 
 ford, in one of its latest catalogues of a large collection of its MSS., has 
 sanctioned the compilation of an index of names, &c., not referring to 
 the calendar or catalogue, but to the MSS. themselves from which the 
 catalogue is compiled." 
 
 Ordinary persons might find a difficulty in understand- 
 ing how an index could be made applicable to the pages of 
 the Calendars, which it is admitted do not contain a large 
 proportion of the matter proposed to be indexed. Perhaps, 
 however, a solution may be found through the Commis- 
 sioners' phraseology at page 5 of the Report, where they 
 write of the body of the work having been represented as 
 being " replete with" " deficiencies and omissions" — that 
 is, full of what it does not contain ! Thus Jean Baptiste 
 Rousseau wrote : 
 
 " Tout est dans I'esprit des lecteurs, 
 Tandis que rien n'est dans I'ouvrage ! " 
 
 In cases of omissions of entire entries similar to that 
 noticed at page 42, the proposed index would be utterly im- 
 practicable, nor could it supply the details of the positions 
 which the lands occupied in the grants defectively calen- 
 dared. The proposal that an inaccurate translator should 
 not only correct his oivn mistakes, but be well paid for doing 
 so, is original, and recalls Moore's verses on " mending a 
 great Major- Greneral's grammar :" — 
 
 " But, lo, a fresh puzzlement starts up to view — 
 
 New toil for the Sub. — for the Lord new expense : 
 'Tis discover'd that mending his grammar won't do, 
 As the Subaltern also must find him in sense ! " 
 
 An index such as that proposed, of names existing on 
 the Rolls but not in the Calendars, would be both use- 
 
:t-'<?T''™f?wf-M 
 
 46 Necessity for new Calendars. 
 
 less to the Public, and opposed to the principles laid down 
 by Sir John Romilly, printed as follows, in his " Instruc- 
 tions to Editors of Calendars," under the superintendence of 
 Mr T. D- Hardy himself: — 
 
 " The greater number of the readers who will consult and value these 
 works can have little or no opportunity of visiting the Record OflSce 
 in which these papers are deposited. The means for consulting the 
 originals must necessarily be limited when readers live at a distance 
 from the "metropolis ; still more if they are residents of Scotland, 
 Ireland, distant colonies, or foreign states. Even when such an oppor- 
 tunity does exist, the difficulty of mastering the original hands in which 
 these papers are written will deter many readers from consulting them. 
 Above all, their great variety and number must present formidable ob- 
 stacles to literary inquirers, however able, sanguine, and energetic, when 
 the information contained in them is not made accessible by satisfactory 
 Calendars." 
 
 The Commissioners' comparison of these Calendars with 
 a catalogue of manuscripts at Oxford is inapplicable. The 
 Oxford manuscripts are matters of historical and literary 
 curiosity, but the Patent and Close Rolls of Ireland are 
 muniments connected with property and title. Of the 
 extent of the matter required to supplement these so- 
 called Calendars an idea may be formed from the speci- 
 mens given at page 38, which shows that in one entry alone 
 the editor has omitted little less than one hundred local 
 names. That this is not a solitary instance may be seen by 
 also referring to the specimens which I gave of defective 
 entries at pages 143, 144, 145, 146, 197 to 201, of "Record 
 Revelations." 
 
 On the whole, the Public will no doubt exact the exe- 
 cution of the first of my original suggestions : require the 
 work to be cancelled entirely, as was done in certain 
 instances in England, and demand Calendars properly 
 executed under those archivists of Ireland in whom they 
 have confidence. The Commissioners, although not directly 
 
'J** ~ . 
 
 >■•' 
 
 " Inefficacious and unreliable" Calendars 47 
 
 proposing the above course, write as follows on the sub- 
 ject : — 
 
 " It [Eecord Revelations] will also serve as a warning against care- 
 less and perfunctory methods of calendaring. That mode which was 
 formerly confined to a brief and vague description of documents, ouring 
 to the searching criticism it has received in this pamphlet, has now be- 
 come impossible. To your Honour, [Sir John Romilly,] who has always 
 been opposed to that method, it will be nO novel thing to hear it stig- 
 matised && worse than inefficaciotis and unreliable ; or to be told that 
 Public opinion demands that these official Calendars — if they are to be 
 worthy of the patronage under» which they are issued, and justify the 
 expense bestowed upon them — must present accurate and faithful ab- 
 stracts of the documents they profess to describe. Whatever indulgence 
 may be extended to occasional inaccuracies, to which all books are sub- 
 ject, to errors of omission, if we may judge from this pamphlet, no 
 toleration will be given ; and in that judgment, for our part, we are in- 
 clined to concur with the archivist, his readers, and many eminent Irish 
 scholars." — Report, page 22. 
 
 At page 12 of the Report the Commissioners, in essaying 
 to apologise for the Calendar transaction, have written that 
 the " book must either be bad indeed, or the mind of the 
 critic [archivist] most unhappily constituted, which can dis- 
 cover nothing but one universal blot^' in such a work. The 
 Public, however, will agree with my judgment, when they 
 remember the following passage, written by Ben Jonson, 
 on productions of small importance in comparison with the 
 Records of the realm : — 
 
 " Nothing, in our age, 1 have observed, is more preposterous than the 
 running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we shaU hear those things 
 commended, and cried up for the best writings, which a man would scarce 
 vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in ; he would never light his 
 tobacco with them.' And those men almost named for miracles, who 
 yet are so vile, that if a man should go about to examine and correct 
 them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their good is so 
 entangled with their bad, as forcibly one must draw on the other's 
 death with it. A sponge dipt in ink will do all : 
 
•s-T'?»,W. 
 
 48 Different Prescriptions for English and Irish Rolk. 
 
 * Comitetur Punica librum 
 
 Spongia.' 
 Et paulb post, 
 
 * Non possunt . . . multse .... liturae 
 una litura potest.' " 
 
 In continuation, the Commissioners proceed to suggest 
 rules which they consider should be adopted in the volumes 
 of Irish Patent Rolls, to be published hereafter. 
 On this point they write as follows, page 20 : — 
 " Needless circumlocution, such as ' lordship or mjnor,' * rights and 
 members,' 'tenements and cottages,' 'fortresses and castles,' and all 
 formal phrases employed in the conveyance of land, are to be avoided. 
 We consider, for the purposes of a calendar, that the words, * manor, 
 with appurtenances in A, B, C,' &c., will be sufficient ; and that it is 
 not necessary to specify the extent or description of acreage of the 
 several dependencies. Not that such information is not valitable; but 
 regard must be had to space, and the main duty of a calendarer is to 
 compile such an abstract, or rather such an index, to the materials con- 
 tained in the RoUs as shall guide, not supersede, the search of the in- 
 quirer ; it is enough for the lawyer, topographer, or antiquarian to learn 
 that information of which he is in quest is to he found in stich and such 
 documents; and this information ought to be conveyed in the briefest 
 possible manner consistent with correctness. That is all most inquirers 
 either wish or require. No abstract, however detailed, vrill satisfy all 
 classes of inquirers. We think also that space might be gained by using 
 single letters for words of ordinary recurrence, as m., manor ; co., county 
 of ; s. h., son and heir ; wardship and m., wardship and marriage ; and 
 in liveries of lands we recommend the condensed form employed in the 
 English State Paper Calendar of Henry VIII." 
 
 The above proposal, of publishing abstracts in the brief- 
 est possible manner of the Irish Records concerning pro- 
 perty and title, cannot be accepted by the Public. It is 
 even at variance with the views elsewhere expressed, as 
 follows, with Government approval, by one of these Commis- 
 sionerSy on the Close Rolls of England, docume^hts whose 
 chief value consists merely in illustrating history : — 
 
 " In being furnished with a transcript of the documents themselves, 
 the reader can suffer no disappointment ; for it often happens that what 
 
■rT^^fSF^V 
 
 Mr Hardy on Rolls of England. 49 
 
 is deemed worthless by some, may be held by others to be of the great- 
 est value ; nor can he have any anxiety to see the originals, instigated 
 by the possibility of discovering some different reading, or other matter 
 which had escaped the notice and proper attention of the abstracter. 
 So important, indeed, has it been thought for every document to be 
 printed in the most correct manner, that in many instances obliterations 
 of whole sentences have been retained (though marked as effaced in the 
 original) as essential to the meaning, it being impossible without them 
 thoroughly to understand the document in which they occur, as the 
 scribe appears frequently to have erased words fatal to the sense, forget 
 ting at the moment the structure of the sentence ; and, consequently, 
 imless the effacement or obliteration had been retained, the instrument 
 must have appeared to be incapable of rational construction ; whereas, 
 by exhibiting it to the reader whole and entire, he is enabled to ascer- 
 tain its real meaning. For these reasons it has been deemed expedient 
 to give a complete and literal transcript ; in short, as close a facsimile 
 of the originals as modem types would admit." — Introduction to Calen- 
 dar of .Close Rolls of England, 1833, page ix. 
 
 Mr Hardy has also in the same work given important 
 examples of the necessity of printing Records in the most 
 literal manner. He has shown " that so simple, and, as it 
 might seem at first sight to some persons, so unimportant 
 a matter as the mere ' Teste' of a writ is often of the ut- 
 most consequence, and that in many cases, by the means 
 of attestations, circumstances and occurrences transmitted 
 to posterity by our ancient chroniclers and historians may 
 be verified." 
 
 It will be regarded as scarcely tolerable by the Public 
 that Commissioners, after admitting the defects we have 
 shown in the Calendars, should in their Report anticipate 
 that an erring editor may be authorised by Government 
 to continue his labours on the Patent Rolls of Ireland 
 during the reign of James I.! At page 19 of the Re- 
 port, the Commissioners enter upon the consideration of 
 errors which they suppose they have detected in the 
 archivist's pamphlet, the importance of some of which 
 
50 English Commission's on Irish Names. 
 
 may be estimated by the following passage from page 15 
 of the Report : — 
 
 " The archivist prints the paragraph thus : * Shall make out true 
 and perfitt inventori.' In the original it is : ' one true and perfitt,' <fec. 
 Ten lines after he prints the words, * By bill indeutid, it ought to be 
 indentid.' " 
 
 The Commissioners themselves write that " to magnify 
 slight errors of this kind would be unjust to this writer, 
 [Archivist,] as all candid men will allow." They should, 
 however, in justice have added, that a wide distinction is 
 to be drawn between the typography of pamphlets and that 
 of Record publications. The latter, issued from the Govern- 
 ment press, are executed, it is always presumed, under the 
 superintendence of experts in this class of work to which 
 extreme accuracy is essential. 
 
 At page 17 the Commissioners write that in more than 
 one instance where the Archivist has accused the editor of 
 blundering, the blunder is not the editor's, but the original 
 scribe's. Thus they seek to justify the translation of al 
 Bishop of Ossory into the " Lord Ollor," and of St Nuadhan 
 into a wooden milk vessel. But when Mr Hardy offers 
 shelter under such arguments, he appears forgetful of the 
 system laid down by himself,* that whenever he found 
 either clerical or grammatical mistakes in documents, he 
 denoted these inaccuracies " by an underline, to indicate 
 that such errors did not escape attention." Under this 
 category comes the following, at page 15 of the Report : — 
 
 " In other instances, he [' the Archivist '] taxes Mr Morrin with com- 
 mitting blimders where he himself is wrong and Mr Morrin is right ; 
 thus, at p. 201, (2d edition,) he condemns Mr Morrin for spelling the 
 word Aghmacartie, adding * «c,' as if to draw attention to the fact, and 
 spells the word in his own abstract four times Aghmacarte, adding a 
 
 * General Introduction to Calendar of Close Rolls of England, by T. 
 D. Hardy, 1833, page 9. 
 
Eng. Commissioners Y. 0' Donovan, Larcom, & Archivist. 51 
 
 note that the name is incorrectly styled Aghmacartie in the Calendar, 
 whereas in all these instances he is wrong, and the reading in the 
 original is exactly as Mr Morrin has given it ! " 
 
 Had the Commissioners any acquaintance with Ireland, 
 they could not have allowed themselves to have been mis- 
 led into so ludicrous a statement as the foregoing. No such 
 place as Aghmacartie existed in Ireland. If they had re- 
 ferred to the thirty-fourth sheet of the Ordnance map of 
 the Queen's County, they would have found the name there 
 written Aghmacarte, as I have given it under the authority 
 of O'Donovan and Larcom.* With apparent satire the 
 Commissioners, at page 16, characterise as " a grave mis- 
 take" the error which I pointed out of the Calendar trans- 
 lation of " a saddle into a seal'' There are, however, other 
 translations in these Calendars not less ludicrous, than if 
 the editor had represented documents as passed under the 
 King's "great saddle" for England or Ireland, instead of 
 under His Majesty's great seal. 
 
 At page 15 the Commissioners write that the Archivist 
 was wrong in not translating the appellation "Dapifer" by 
 the English word Sewer. On this point I merely quote the 
 following commentary from a laborious English work :t — 
 
 " Dapifer has been ignorantly translated Sewer." 
 
 The Commissioners, at page 21 of the Report, take credit 
 for having given the following, which they characterise 
 as an " interesting memorandum," annexed to the poet's 
 
 * I explained at page 201 of " Record Revelations " that the name of 
 Aghmacart was derived from the Irish AcJiad mic Airt, or Field of the 
 Son of Art. Thus in Gaelic Annals of the twelfth century, its burning 
 is referred to — " Daurmagh Ua-n-Duach, Achadh mic Airt, Cul Caissin, 
 agus Fearta caerach do loscadh." 
 
 t The Pictorial History of England, being a History of the People as 
 well as a History of the Kingdom, by G. L. Craik and C. MacFarlane, 
 &c., vol. i. p, 567. London, 1847. 
 

 52 Error of Commissioners respecting Spenser. 
 
 appointment to the office of Register or Clerk of the Chan- 
 cery of Ireland in 1580 : — 
 
 " Given free from the Seale to Mr Spencer, in respect he ys secretaire 
 to the Right Honourable the L. Deputy." 
 
 This entry they suppose to have " escaped the notice" of 
 the Archivist ; who has, they admit, brought to light inter- 
 esting matters in connexion with Spenser and his friend 
 Lodovico Bryskett, "disclosing facts unknown to former 
 biographers." Another evidence is here afforded of the 
 dangers into which English Commissioners may fall in 
 pronouncing upon Irish Records. So far from the excep- 
 tion having been made especially for the poet, the same 
 concession was usual in Ireland to the holders of similar 
 offices, as the following instances show : — 
 
 Zachary Peers, appointed Chief Chamberlain of the Exchequer, 
 April 30, 1593. — " Patent given free from the Seal, in respect he is the 
 Lord Deputy's Secretary, and also by his Lordship's directions." 
 
 George Robinson, appointed Keeper of Writs of Court of Common 
 Pleas, Dublin, July 2, 1594. — "Patent given free, in respect that he 
 was an ofl&cer in the Common Pleas." 
 
 John Slade, appointed Chirographer, July 2, 1594. — " Patent given 
 free from the Great Seal to Mr Slade, in respect he is an officer in Her 
 Majesty's Common Pleas." 
 
 Richard Cook, appointed Chancellor of Green Wax of Exchequer, 
 Jan. 26, 1596. — " Patent given free, in respect that he was a principal 
 officer, according to ancient custom." 
 
 It must be a cause of regret to all interested in accurate 
 historical literature that Mr Hardy and Mr Brewer should 
 have stooped to appear even as partial apologists for 
 matters against which every true scholar must revolt. 
 These Commissioners would have acted more prudently 
 had they given the Rolls Department the homely advice of 
 honest Sancho — " Let us leave the filth in the corner ; it is 
 the worse for stirring." As the matter stands, they are 
 circumstanced somewhat as indicated by the Portuguese 
 

 Different Treatment of English and Irish Archivists. 53 
 
 axiom — "Quem com caens se lan^a, com pulgas se 
 levanta." 
 
 The Report assumes the condemnation of a system to be 
 that of an individual. The editor of the Calendars and his 
 official supporters were inculpated no further, than was 
 necessary to abolish the pernicious system of which they 
 were the exponents in the eyes of the public. It appears, 
 indeed, almost incredible that Sir John Romilly, as Master 
 of the Rolls and head of the Government Record Depart- 
 ment of England, should approve of the sentiments ex- 
 pressed in this Report, officially addressed to him, on the 
 subjects of literary property and archivistic work. 
 
 I might enlarge on many points of this Report, in which 
 the Commissioners, to support their apologies, even at page 
 15, quote from "Record Revelations" a passage not to be 
 found in that publication ! Enough, however, has already 
 been exhibited in the foregoing pages to render super- 
 fluous further discussion ether on the " Calendars" or on 
 the Report. 
 
 The attempt to apologise has neither been successful, nor 
 has it brought credit on those who engaged in it, although 
 supported by influential departments, aided by the public 
 funds and the Government printing office. I, meanwhile, 
 in asserting the cause of the Public and of honesty, stood 
 in the position of the tailor of Cantillo, so renowned in 
 Spain, who sewed for nothing and found thread himself ! 
 
 You, gentlemen, are aware that while large sums from 
 the Imperial Treasury have been expended on Record 
 works in England, the archceological literature of Ireland 
 has been denied similar assistance* By self-devotion and 
 personal sacrifice alone has this branch of Irish learning 
 
 * For details of those grants, see " Record Revelations Resumed," 
 pages 193-196. 
 
54 Continental Opinion on Treajtment of Irish Scholars. 
 
 been brought to the high eminence which it now holds 
 throughout the historical and philological world. 
 
 Of one of the ill-requited scholars, to whom we are pre- 
 eminently indebted for having advanced our country's re- 
 putation in this department, a profound Continental phi- 
 lologist has written as follows : — 
 
 " J'ai lu avec un vif iriteret la brochure sur O'Donovan et ses travaux,* 
 mais elle m'a laiss6 une veritable impression de tristesse. J'ai peine 
 k concevoir comment un homme de ce m6rite a trouve si peu d'encour- 
 agements pour des travaux qui ont illustre son pays. II faut que les 
 prejug'es Saxons contre tout ce qui est Celtique soient encore hien vivaces 
 pour expliquer une pareUle indifference." 
 
 It is not, therefore, surprising that indignation should 
 have been expressed in my pages against an attempt to 
 appropriate the labours of those who, for so high a national 
 and unselfish object, " thought and strove, and knowledge 
 tried to glean." 
 
 Such a system, moreover, if not repudiated and held up 
 to proportionable public scorn, would have rendered the 
 archivists of Ireland contemptible in the eyes of the 
 scholars of the world, who might justly conclude that they 
 had commenced 
 
 " Downwards to climb and backwards to advance." 
 
 The result of the entire affair here discussed must con- 
 firm the views which I originally put forward on the neces- 
 sity of promptly establishing in Ireland Record arrange- 
 ments similar to those already provided for England and 
 Scotland. Under that system a recurrence of such un- 
 happy mistakes as those which I have exhibited would be 
 impossible ; and every class of investigators could satisfac- 
 torily procure that information and assistance in their re- 
 
 * " On the Life and Labours of John O'Donovan, LL.D." Dublin, 
 W. B KeUy, 8 Grafton Street, 1862. 
 
Concluding Observations. 55 
 
 searches now unobtainable. The question, as I have de- 
 monstrated in my previous pamphlets, does not affect 
 Ireland alone ; and on this head, the Commissioners, at 
 page 3 of the Report, confirm my views as follows : — 
 
 " Independently of the interest which such a subject naturally offers 
 to Englishmen as well as to Irishmen, as an integral portion of the 
 history of the two kingdoms, it must be evident that, regarded merely 
 as records of a most momentous period in the life of the two nations, 
 such documents cannot be regarded with indifference ; without them 
 the true history of Ireland never can be written. . . . On this point, as 
 it seems to us, public opinion is unanimous." 
 
 I have but to add, in conclusion, an observation respect- 
 ing the remark of the Commissioners quoted at page 43, that 
 they know not "whether there be one or more authors" of 
 "Record Revelations." Whatever may be the merits or 
 demerits of these publications they are entirely my own. 
 In their production I have neither sought nor obtained 
 co-operation or aid from individuals or bodies, although I 
 doubt not that there is more than one scholar in Ireland 
 quite as competent to deal with the subject, as 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 AN IRISH ARCHIVIST. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 EVIDENCE RESPECTING COMPILATION OF THE NOW 
 MISSING CALENDARS OF PATENT AND CLOSE ROLLS 
 OF IRELAND, A.D. 1819-29. See page 37. 
 
 Irish Record Commission. 
 
 Supplement to the Eighth Annual Eeport. 
 1. The Commissioners' Supplemerdal Report. 
 
 To His Royal Highness George Prince of Wales, Regent of the 
 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Council, — 
 
 We, the Commissioners constituted and appointed by His Majesty's 
 Royal Commission, bearing date the thirtieth day of August, One thou- 
 sand eight hundred and ten, for carrying into execution the measures 
 recommended in the himible address of the House of Commons to 
 His Majesty, with respect to the state of the Public Records of Ireland, 
 and the necessity of providing for the better arrangement, preservation, 
 and more convenient use of the same : whereby we, the said Commis- 
 sioners, are authorised and empowered to nominate and appoint, from 
 time to time, persons of ability, care and diligence, to act as Secretary 
 and Sub-Commissioners to be employed in methodising, regulating, 
 and digesting the Records, Rolls, Instruments, Books and Papers, in 
 His Majesty's several Offices ; and in causing such of the said Records 
 as are decayed and in danger of being destroyed to be bound and 
 secured ; and in making exact Calendars and Indexes thereof ; and in 
 superintending the printing of such Calendars and Indexes and origi- 
 njJ Records and Papers, as should be ordered to be printed j and to 
 certify unto the Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, for the 
 
\— , 
 
 58 Evidence as to Compilation of Calendar of Patent Rolls. 
 
 time being, what would be a fit and suitable recompense to such 
 Secretary and Sub-Commissioners respectively for their pains and 
 services in the execution of the duties required to be by them per- 
 formed : And we, the said Commissioners, or any three or more of us, 
 are further required, on or before the twenty-fifth day of March in every 
 year, during the continuance of the said Commission, to certify to His 
 Majesty's Privy Council, in the manner therein directed, all and every of 
 the several proceedings of ourselves and the said Sub-Commissioners, 
 had by virtue of the said Commission ; together with such other mat- 
 ters, if any, as might be deserving His Majesty's royal consideration, 
 touching or concerning the premises ; — do most humbly beg leave to 
 certify to your Royal Highness that we have proceeded in further exe- 
 cution of the several works stated in our last Report to your Royal 
 Highness in your Privy Council ; and we now beg leave most humbly 
 to lay before your Royal Highness the following matters, as an Appen- 
 dix or Supplement to our said eighth Annual Report on the Public 
 Records of Ireland. And we further beg leave most humbly to state 
 to your Royal Highness that at the present time we have not any 
 other matters to offer to your Royal Highness's consideration, touching 
 or concerning the premises, or any further matter to propose thereupon. 
 All which is most humbly submitted to your Royal Highness's con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Manners, [Chajicellor of Ireland] L[ocus] S[igill{]. 
 
 Charlemont, L.S. 
 
 Charles, [Bishop of] Kildare, L.S. 
 
 Wm. M'Mahon, [Bart., Master of the Rolls for Ire- 
 land,] L.S. 
 
 NoRBURY, [Chief Justice of Common Pleas,] L.S. 
 Dublin, 22c? January 1819. 
 
 " The Special Report of the Committee of Observation, made pur- 
 suant to orders dated the 17th day of March 1817, and the 19th 
 day of May last. 
 
 Catalogues, Calendars, Indexes, tkc. 
 
 The Calendar to the Patent and Close Rolls, in the Rolls Office, has 
 been already brought down to the commencement of the reign of 
 James I. ; and it is submitted to the consideration of the Board, whether 
 the period for its conclusion ought not to be fixed at the Revolution in 
 1688. ... 
 
Evidence as to Compilation of Calendar of Patent Rolls. 59 
 
 All which is respectfully submitted this eighteenth day of January 
 1819. 
 
 William Ball. 
 
 Roderick Connor, 
 
 Steuart King. 
 
 John Brinkley. 
 
 Francis Corbet. 
 January 1819. Willlaj* Shaw Mason." 
 
 " Tabular Digest of the Sub-Commissioners' returns to the Committee. 
 
 Actual result and present state of the works. 
 
 Arrangement of Patent and Close Rolls, from 31° Edward 1. to the 
 present time [1819], in chronological order completed. 
 
 Catalogue to same, giving an accurate description of each Roll, com- 
 pleted. 
 
 Calendar of contents of same to the end of the reign of Elizabeth, con- 
 taining upwards of 12,000 pages, completed ; and considerable progress 
 made in the revision of the same for printing. 
 
 Indexes Nominum and Locorum to same, containing 5412 pages com- 
 pleted." — The sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth Reports from the 
 Commissioners appointed by His Majesty to execute the measures recom- 
 mended in an address of the House of Commons, respecting the Public 
 Records of Ireland; with supplements and appendixes, 1816-1820. 
 Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 13th July 1819, 
 and 8th July 1820. Pages 37, 38, 39, 42, 43, 48. 
 
 The " Detailed Statement or Report," signed by W. Shaw Mason, the 
 Secretary of the Commission, dated " Record Tower, Dublin Castle, 
 24th December 1829," specifically states, at page 1, under the head of 
 " works now in progress of printing," that " the Calendar to the Patent 
 Bolls extends from the reign of Edward I. to the period of the Revolu- 
 tion in 1688." 
 
i..-1-T - 
 
 60 Appendix. 
 
 11. 
 
 LETTERS PATENT OF HENRY VIII., A.D. 1543, TO SIR 
 DERMOD O'SEACHNUSAIGH, OR O'SHAUGHNESSY, 
 RESPECTING LANDS AND POSSESSIONS IN THE 
 COUNTY OF GALWAY; OFFICIALLY EXTRACTED 
 FROM THE PATENT ROLL OF 35 HENRY VIIL, BUT 
 TOTALLY OMITTED IN THE NEW "CALENDARS." 
 See Page 42. 
 
 The following, totally omitted in the so-called new "Calendars," is 
 printed verbatim from the official copy, attested by the Deputy- 
 Keeper of the Rolls at Dublin, who, as stated at page 4, gave a 
 certificate to the Treasury that the new Calendars were " quite com- 
 plete, and without any omissions.^' See pages 5, 4, and 43. 
 
 " Extracted from the Patent Rolls, Chancery, Irela7id. 
 
 " 35 Henry VIII. 
 
 ^' Henricus Octavus dei gfa Anglie Francie et Hibnie 
 rex fidei defensor et in terra Ecclie Anglicane et Hibni- 
 cane supremu' caput' Omnibus ad quos pntes lie pvene- 
 runt Sattm cu' nos p Iras nfas de dat' noni diei Julii 
 anno regni nri tricesimo quinto manu nfa ppr' consignat' 
 signotoq' nro signat' tarn dilco et fidel' nro Anthonio 
 Sentleger milit' uni generosor' private cam'e nre deputato 
 nro regni nf i Hibne qm al' de consilio nro eiusd' regni nri 
 signifacaverim^ q*^ nos de gfa nra concessim" dilco et fidel' 
 subdito nf Dermicio O'Sheaghyn milit' sue naSonis capi- 
 
!-w?S«a3j*g[S- 
 
 Grant totally omitted from new Calendars, 61 
 
 taneo et hered' mascul' de corpore suo I'time pcreat' et 
 pcreand' omnia et singula ilia castra honor' mania terr' et 
 tenta cu' pten' que pd' Dermitius !iere ptendit Tenend' 
 de nobis hered' et success' nf is p serviciu unius feed' milit' 
 dantesq' virtute et warrant' earund' Irar nrar ac bille 
 manibus diet' Deputat' Johfiis Allen Cane' nfi Willmi 
 Brabazon subthes' nri Gerald' Ailmer cap'lis justic' nri ad 
 p'lita coram nob' ibm tenend' et Thome Cusake milit' 
 mag'ri rotul' Cane' nfo regni nfi pd' consignat' eid' Cane' 
 nro dci regni nri Hib'nie plenam ptatem et auctatem If as 
 nfas patent' de et sup pmiss' eid' Dermicio O'Sheaghyn 
 faciend' sigilland' et delib'and' Cumq' etiam nos et pnobi- 
 lissimi pgenitor' nfi reges Anglie fuerim^ dni Reges ac 
 veri possessores omn' manerior dmor villar et villat' de 
 Gortynechegory Dromneyll Dellyncallen Ballyhide Mony- 
 nean Ardgossan Ballyegyn Keparell Clonehaghe Tollene- 
 gan Lycknegaishe Crege Karrynges Tirrelaghe Rathville- 
 downe Ardmiylowan tert' pt' de Droneskenan tert' pt 'de 
 Rath dimid' pt' de Flyngeston Ardvillegoghe Dromle- 
 ballehue Cowle et Behe cu' ptin' necnon omn' castr' mess' 
 terr' tent' redd' revert' servic' molendin' et heredit' 
 quorumcumq' cu' ptin' in vill' et campis de Gortenchegory 
 Droraneill Dellyncallen Ballyhide Monynean Ardgossan 
 Ballyegyn Kepparell Clonehaghe Tolonegan Lakne- 
 gaishe Crege Caryngs Tirrelaghe E-athvilledown Ardmyl- 
 lowan terc' pt' de Dronkeskenan tert' pt' de Rathe 
 tert' pt' de Fyngliston Ardillegoghe Dromle Ballyhue 
 Cowle et Behe pd' in regno nfo Hibnie tamen pd' 
 Dermitius et antecessores sui nfales subdit' nfi infra 
 pd' regnu' nru' Hibnie existen' arroganter et contra 
 
^P^'~' ■ ..-.■■■■ *'~'~f^«;7»»:5T 
 
 62 Grant totally omitted from new Calendars. 
 
 legiancie sue debit' absq' uUo jure titulo sive interesse 
 legitime in pd' castr' mania dnia villas villat' mess' 
 et cetera pmiss' cu' ptin' usurpaverunt intraverunt et 
 intruderunt ac injustam et usurpat' eoi' possess' pmissof 
 contra jus et eor legiancie debit' continuaverunt donee 
 nunc dudu' pd' Dermitius ad memoriam suam revocans 
 tam debitu' suu' erga den' [s/c] quam legiantiam quam erga 
 nos suu [sic] natural' et legen' dmi [sic] et regem gerere 
 debet qm seipsu' nob' et legibus nris humillime submisit qm 
 to tam suam pd' injustam usurpat' et ptens' possession' 
 qin ad et in pd' castr' maner' d'nia' vill' villat' mess' 
 terr' tent' ac ceter' pmiss' Rere ptendit' reliquit renunciavit 
 et remitt' Sciatis q<i nos pmissa considerantes et con- 
 fidentes q^ idem Dermitius et hered' sui imposter' semp 
 sese in oibus tanquam fideles diici et maxime obedientcs 
 subditi nri nobis hered' et successor' nfis hebunt [sic] et 
 gerent de maxima nra benignitate dementia gra nra 
 spiali ac ex certa scia et mere motu nris dedim^ et con- 
 cessim' ac p pntes Iras nfas patent' damns et concedm" 
 eidem Dermitio oia pd' castra' maner' dnia villas villat' 
 mess' terr' tent ac ceter pmissa' cu' ptin' Ac revercoes 
 et reddit' omn' et singul' pmiss' et cujuslibet inde pcell 
 cu' ptin'. Habend' tenend' gaudend' retinend' et occupand' 
 oia' et singul' pd' castr' maner' dnia' villas villat' mess' 
 terr' tent' ac cetera pmissa cu' pten' pfat Dermitio et 
 hered' mascul' de corpore ipius Dermitii legitm' pcreat' et 
 pcreand* in tam amplis mode et forma put oia et singut 
 pmissa supius in pntibus expressa et specificat' cu' oibus 
 eor jur' membr' et ptin' univers' ad manus nras quo- 
 cunque mode devenerunt sen de venire debuerunt. Tenend' 
 

 'TVf'-fi- -. i^i^r^^ '•''i^3-\^-'if' ^ K ;"■?"<■•■ 
 
 i:--r:^^W 
 
 I. 
 
 f 
 
 Grant totally omitted from new Calendars. 
 
 63 
 
 de nobis hered' et successor' nris in capite p servitiu' 
 unius feod' milit' quand' scutagiu' currit in dco regno 
 nro Hibnie p oibus al' servic' exact' et demannd' [sic\ qui 
 buscunq' nob' hered' et success' nris reddend' solvend' 
 seu faciend' absq' compoto seu aliquo al' iode nob' 
 hered' aut succ' nris reddend' solvend' seu faciend'. 
 Proviso semp quod si pd' Dermicius aut aliquis hered' vel 
 assignat' suor' habens statu' suu' vel aliquam pt' eiusdem 
 status sui in pd' castr' manor' dniis' mess' terr' tentis' 
 ac ceter' pmiss' cu' ptin' vel in aliqua pte vel pcella eord' 
 imposter' faciet seu facient aliquam confederacoem cu 
 aliquo rebelliu'seu inimicor nror' contra nram regiam majes- 
 tatem aut attemptet seu attemptent aliqm voluntariam 
 guerram invasionem sive destruccoem contra nos aut veros 
 fideles et obedientes subditos nros aut aliquo modo trans- 
 gi'edietur vel transgredientur aliquam pt' allegiantie sui 
 aut allegiantie eof alicujus qui leges nfe declarant esse 
 pdicoem et inde juxta debitu' ordinem legu' nrar hered' 
 vel successor' nror condempnabitur vel condempnabuntur. 
 Quod tunc idem Dermitius hered' et assignat' sui modo 
 et forma ut pdicitur condempnat' vel condempnat' pdent 
 et forisfacient nobis hered' et success' nris oia hmoi jus 
 titul' et interesse et possessionem que ipse vel ipsi tunc 
 habet seu hebunt et clamabit seu clamabunt vigore hujus 
 nfe concessionis in pd' castr' maner' domis vill' villat' 
 messuag' terr' tent' ac ceter' pmiss' cu' ptin' vel in aliqua 
 inde pcell' Aliqua re causa vel mater' in hac nra donacoe 
 sive concessione content' in aliquo non obstant' Eoquod 
 expressa menco de vero A-^alore annuo aut de certitudine 
 pmissor aut de al' donis sive concessionibus p nos eid 
 

 
 
 ;• . . *^.:-*i/t-- K^ivj:, -,.l,rv■ 
 ■■'e- ■'■■•:- •■ ■ . 
 
 ■:iP 
 
 
 64 Grant totcdly omitted from new Calendars. . #^^^; 
 
 Dermitio fact' in pntibus niinime fact' existit. Aliquo 
 statute act' ordinacoe sive pvis' inde in contrar' fact' 
 edit' ordinat' sive pvis' aut aliqua al' re causa vel mater' 
 quacunque in aliquo non obstante. In cujus rei testimon' 
 has Ifas iiras fieri fecimus patentes. Teste meipso apud 
 Dublin' tertio die Decembr' anno regni nfi tricesimo 
 quinto. Cusacke." 
 
 John Reilly, 
 J. J. D. L[atouche,] D\eputy] K\eeper'] R\olls,'\ 
 
 [Clerk of Pleadings, Rolls [Dublin.^ 
 
 Court, Dublin.^ 
 
 Endorsed as follows : — 
 
 "Chancery, Ireland. Dated Pat. Rolls 3d Dec, 35 
 Henry VIII. Rolls Office. Grant of lands to Dermot 
 O'Sheaghyn. 
 
 Constat fee, £0 10 
 
 15 sheets at 6jd. 
 
 
 
 8 11 
 
 Latin Fees 
 
 £0 
 
 
 18 li 
 5 71 
 
 Irish 
 
 £1 
 
 3 9 
 
 British 
 
 £1 
 
 1 11"