The first mention of Mellifont by the Four Masters occurs under the year 1152, when a great synod of three thousand ecclesiastics was held there. It was in Mellifont that the woman whose crime is supposed to have been the cause of the English invasion of Ireland died in the year 1193. This was Dearvorgil, the faithless wife of O'Ruarc, whom Moore has called "falsest of women." It is, however, now thought by most of those who have studied Irish history closely that Dermott MacMorrough's relations with this lady had nothing whatever to do with his banishment. They point out the fact that it was about ten years after Dearvorgil had been restored to her people that MacMorrough was banished, and maintain that the true cause of his banishment was in order to re-impose the tribute on the province of Leinster, the Danes being no longer able to assist the Leinstermen as they were wont to do. The other provincial rulers wanted to have the King of Leinster put out of the way, for, as he was a warlike man, they knew he would fight to the bitter end for the protection of his province. If this version of the matter is true, it goes far to free Dermott MacMorrough from the odium that rests on his memory. Monasterboice is one of the oldest places connected with Christianity in Ireland. Its foundation may have been as old as the time of St Patrick, for Buite, from whom it takes its name, and by whom it probably was founded, died in the year 524. There seems good reason to believe that "Buite" is the original form of the now very plentiful name "Boyd," but how Monaster Buite got twisted into Monasterboice is a mystery. The situation of this ancient place is not nearly so picturesque as that of Mellifont. There is no rushing river and no deep glen. Still the situation is good, and the country around very fine, and, like most parts of Louth, well cultivated. The peculiar glories of Monasterboice are its crosses and its round tower. There are three crosses, two in good preservation, but one was so broken that it had to be patched or fastened into solid stone work. It is most likely that it was purposely destroyed, for barbarians have done their best to cut down the great cross that stands in the same enclosure--the finest of all ancient Irish crosses. It must have taken days for a strong man with a heavy sledge-hammer to make such a deep indentation in the hard stone of which the cross is made. It was its extreme hardness that saved it from destruction and defacement. But hard as the stone of those crosses may be, it cannot resist the action of the elements, for the sculptures with which they are covered are now so effaced by time and weather, that they seem little more than masses of unintelligible tracings; but when those noble crosses were fresh from their makers' hands they must have been magnificent specimens of early Irish art.