II. Another line of the old fragment seems to name the see of the B. Thaddeus, whom the poet describes as lamenting his death abroad, far from the “solum Chariense”, or “Clovinense”, which we interpret far “from _Kerry_”, the burial place of his family, and “from _Cloyne_”, his episcopal see. “Cloyne” is variously Latinized, even by Irish writers, “Cloynensis”, “Clonensis”, “Cluanensis”—and often “Clovens” or “Clovinen”, in Rymer’s _Foedera_.(7) What more natural than that a poet would describe the pilgrim as longing to be buried either in his cathedral church of _Cloyne_ or with his fathers in _Kerry_? III. The passage which seems to us most decisive, is that which points to the _royal extraction_ and _name_ of this holy bishop: “_Regia progenies, alto de sanguine Machar_”. Observe how in the notice from _Harold_ Bishop M’Carthy was called also “Mechar”. Clearly both were one and the same name. Thus [Gaelic: Mac Careaw], Anglicised M’Carthy, is pronounced Maccaura, with the last syllable short, as in Ard-Magha (Armagh), and numberless like words. Hence Wadding,(8) in speaking of the foundation of Muckross Abbey, Killarney, by Domnal M’Carthy, Prince of Desmond, quotes to this effect a Bull of Paul II., in 1468, in which Domnall’s name is spelled “_Machar_”, a form identical with that in the contemporary fragment. In truth, there is no Irish family name like “Machar” at all but “Meagher”, which is invariably spelled with “O”, especially in the Latinized form; and the “O’Meaghers” had no claim to _royal_ blood. IV. The Blessed Thaddeus was “regia progenies”. Now there was no _royal_ family name in Ireland like that in the inscription except the truly _royal_ name, made more royal still by the saintly Bishop of Cloyne. Without insisting with Keating that the ancestry of the M’Carthy family could be traced through twenty-eight monarchs who governed the island before the Christian era, we may assert with the Abbe MacGeoghan, in a note (tom. iii. p. 680), strangely omitted by his translator, “that if regard be had to primogeniture and seniority of descent, the M’Carthy family is the _first_ in Ireland”. Long before the founders of the oldest royal families in Europe—before Rodolph acquired the empire of Germany, or a Bourbon ascended the throne of France—the saintly Cormac M’Carthy, the disciple, the friend, and patron of St. Malachy, ruled over Munster, and the title of _king_ was at least continued in name in his posterity down to the reign of Elizabeth. “Few pedigrees, if any”, says Sir B. Burke, “in the British empire can be traced to a more remote or exalted source than that of the Celtic house of M’Carthy.... They command a prominent, perhaps the _most prominent_ place in European genealogy”. Plain then is it that in no other house could the “regia progenies” be verified more fully than in the M’Carthy family.(9)