In the history of Ireland, as might be expected, we come upon many instances wherein the dead are solemnly remembered from that period, when still pagan, and one of the ancient manuscripts gives us an account of certain races, it calls them, which were held for "the souls of the foreigners slain in battle." This was back in the night of antiquity, and was no doubt some relic of the Christian tradition which had remained amid the darkness of paganism. But to come to the Christian period. The famous Hugues de Lasci, or Hugo de Lacy, Lord of Meath, and one of the most distinguished men in early Irish annals, founded many abbeys and priories, one at Colpe, near the mouth of the Boyne, one at Duleek, one at Dublin, and one at Kells. The Canons of St. Augustine, as we read, "in return for this gift, covenanted that one of them should be constantly retained as a chaplain to celebrate Mass for his soul and for those of his ancestors and successors." We also read how Marguerite, wife of Gualtier de Lasci, brother of the above, gave a large tract in the royal forest of Acornebury, in Herefordshire, for the erection of a nunnery for the benefit of the souls of her parents, Guillaume and Mathilda de Braose, who with their son, her brother, had been famished in the dungeon at Windsor. In the account of the death in Spain of Red Hugh O'Donnell, who holds a high place among the chivalry of Ireland, it is mentioned that on his death- bed, "after lamenting his crimes and transgressions; after a rigid penance for his sins and iniquities; after making his confession without reserve to his confessors, and receiving the body and blood of Christ; after being duly anointed by the hands of his own confessors and ecclesiastical attendants," he expired after seventeen days' illness at the king's palace in Simancas. "His body," says the ancient chronicler, "was conveyed to the king's palace at Valladolid in a four- wheeled hearse, surrounded by countless numbers of the king's State officers, council and guards, with luminous torches and bright flambeaux of wax lights burning on either side. He was afterwards interred in the monastery of St. Francis, in the Chapter, precisely, with veneration and honor, and in the most solemn manner that any of the Gaels had been ever interred in before. Masses and many hymns, chants and melodious canticles were celebrated for the welfare of his soul; and his requiem was sung with becoming solemnity." On the death of the celebrated Brian Boroihme, historians relate how his body was conveyed by the clergy to the Abbey of Swords, whence it was brought by other portions of the clergy and taken successively to two monasteries. It was then met by the Archbishop of Armagh, at the head of his priesthood, and conveyed to Armagh, where the obsequies were celebrated with a pomp and a fervor worthy the greatness and the piety of the deceased monarch.