"_Tir-na-n-óg_," Mr. Douglas Hyde writes, "'The Country of the Young,' is the place where the Irish peasant will tell you _geabhaedh tu an sonas aer pighin_, 'you will get happiness for a penny,' so cheap and common it will be. It is sometimes, but not often, called _Tir-na-hóige_; the 'Land of Youth.' Crofton Croker writes it, _Thierna-na-noge_, which is an unfortunate mistake of his, _Thierna_ meaning a lord, not a country. This unlucky blunder is, like many others of the same sort where Irish words are concerned, in danger of becoming stereotyped, as the name of Iona has been, from mere clerical carelessness." THE GONCONER OR GANCANAGH [GEAN-CANACH].--Page 207. O'Kearney, a Louthman, deeply versed in Irish lore, writes of the _gean-cānach_ (love-talker) that he is "another diminutive being of the same tribe as the Lepracaun, but, unlike him, he personated love and idleness, and always appeared with a dudeen in his jaw in lonesome valleys, and it was his custom to make love to shepherdesses and milk-maids. It was considered very unlucky to meet him, and whoever was known to have ruined his fortune by devotion to the fair sex was said to have met a _gean-cānach_. The dudeen, or ancient Irish tobacco pipe, found in our raths, etc., is still popularly called a _gean-canach's_ pipe." The word is not to be found in dictionaries, nor does this spirit appear to be well known, if known at all, in Connacht. The word is pronounced _gánconâgh_. In the MS. marked R.I.A. 23/E. 13 in the Roy' Ir. Ac., there is a long poem describing such a fairy hurling-match as the one in the story, only the fairies described as the _shiagh_, or host, wore plaids and bonnets, like Highlanders. After the hurling the fairies have a hunt, in which the poet takes part, and they swept with great rapidity through half Ireland. The poem ends with the line-- "_'S gur shiubhail me na cûig cúig cûige's gan fúm acht buachallân buidhe_;" "and I had travelled the five provinces with nothing under me but a yellow bohalawn (rag-weed)."--[_Note by Mr. Douglas Hyde._] FATHER JOHN O'HART.--Page 220. Father O'Rorke is the priest of the parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvarnet, and it is from his learnedly and faithfully and sympathetically written history of these parishes that I have taken the story of Father John, who had been priest of these parishes, dying in the year 1739. Coloony is a village in Kilvarnet. Some sayings of Father John's have come down. Once when he was sorrowing greatly for the death of his brother, the people said to him, "Why do you sorrow so for your brother when you forbid us to keen?" "Nature," he answered, "forces me, but ye force nature." His memory and influence survives, in the fact that to the present day there has been no keening in Coloony. He was a friend of the celebrated poet and musician, Carolan. SHONEEN AND SLEIVEEN.--Page 220.