subsequent events.’ Now, putting out of the question Iolo Morganwg’s
character as an antiquary, it is obvious that no one, not Grimm himself,
can stand in that way as ‘authority’ for King Arthur’s having thus
regulated chronology by his Institutes of the Round Table, or even for
there ever having been any such institutes at all. And finally, greatly
as I respect and admire Mr. Eugene O’Curry, unquestionable as is the
sagacity, the moderation, which he in general unites with his immense
learning, I must say that he, too, like his brother Celt-lovers,
sometimes lays himself dangerously open. For instance, the Royal Irish
Academy possesses in its Museum a relic of the greatest value, the
_Domhnach Airgid_, a Latin manuscript of the four gospels. The outer box
containing this manuscript is of the fourteenth century, but the
manuscript itself, says O’Curry (and no man is better able to judge) is
certainly of the sixth. This is all very well. ‘But,’ O’Curry then goes
on, ‘I believe no reasonable doubt can exist that the _Domhnach Airgid_
was actually sanctified by the hand of our great Apostle.’ One has a
thrill of excitement at receiving this assurance from such a man as
Eugene O’Curry; one believes that he is really going to make it clear
that St. Patrick did actually sanctify the _Domhnach Airgid_ with his own
hands; and one reads on:—
‘As St. Patrick, says an ancient life of St. Mac Carthainn preserved by
Colgan in his _Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ_, was on his way from the north,
and coming to the place now called Clogher, he was carried over a stream
by his strong man, Bishop Mac Carthainn, who, while bearing the Saint,
groaned aloud, exclaiming: “Ugh! Ugh!”
‘“Upon my good word,” said the Saint, “it was not usual with you to make
that noise.”
‘“I am now old and infirm,” said Bishop Mac Carthainn, “and all my early
companions in mission-work you have settled down in their respective
churches, while I am still on my travels.”
‘“Found a church then,” said the Saint, “that shall not be too near us”
(that is to his own Church of Armagh) “for familiarity, nor too far from
us for intercourse.”
‘And the Saint then left Bishop Mac Carthainn there, at Clogher, and
bestowed the _Domhnach Airgid_ upon him, which had been given to Patrick
from heaven, when he was on the sea, coming to Erin.’
The legend is full of poetry, full of humour; and one can quite
appreciate, after reading it, the tact which gave St. Patrick such a
prodigious success in organising the primitive church in Ireland; the new
bishop, ‘not too near us for familiarity, nor too far from us for
intercourse,’ is a masterpiece. But how can Eugene O’Curry have imagined
that it takes no more than a legend like that, to prove that the
particular manuscript now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy was
once in St. Patrick’s pocket?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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