If Doctor Petrie had known of the existence of those two proofs given of the Lia Fail having been removed from Tara, he never would have said that all ancient Irish writers spoke of it in such a way as to leave no doubt of its being there still. O'Reilly, author of Irish dictionary, says: "Lia Fail, the stone of destiny, on which the ancient Irish monarchs used to be crowned until the time of Mortogh Mac Earc, who sent it into Scotland that his brother Fergus, who had subdued that country, might be crowned on it. It is now in Westminster Abbey." O'Reilly was the most learned Irish scholar and historian of his day, and was a painstaking, conscientious man, who would hardly state any thing for which he did not have good authority. It must, however, be admitted that up to the present no positive statement seems to have been found in ancient Irish writings as to when and by whom the Lia Fail was brought from Tara to Scotland; neither does it seem to be known where O'Reilly got his information about it. When Petrie spoke of the improbability of the Irish allowing such a venerated monument as the Lia Fail to be taken out of Ireland, he should have remembered that at the time when it is said to have been taken, in the beginning of the sixth century, Christianity had become established in Ireland. Paganism or Druidism may have survived among a few, but it had got its death-blow. Pagan monuments of every kind had begun to be disregarded. The Lia Fail was essentially a Pagan monument, and consequently an abhorrence to Christians. The fathers, or at least the grandfathers, of the men who allowed Fergus to take it to Scotland, would probably have shed the last drop of their blood to keep it in Ireland. The disrepute into which everything connected with Paganism had fallen after the introduction of Christianity is plainly set forth in the "Book of Leinster" in the very page from which the Gaelic extract about the Lia Fail has been given:--"It happened that Christ was born not long after; it was that which broke the power of the idols."[3] The Lia Fail was an idol that had lost its power and prestige, so that the people would not be likely to have any objection to its being removed to Scotland or anywhere else.