The reader may here expect some remarks on the vicissitudes of this see, and its successive connection with the provinces of Tuam and Armagh. When as yet there were only two archiepiscopal sees in our island, extending to Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogha, all Connacht, and with it Clonmacnoise, was comprised in the northern district. Gradually, however, Tuam grew into the proportions of a distinct province, and in the synod of Rathbreasil, held by St. Celsus of Armagh in 1110, we find the five sees of Tuam, Clonfert, Cong, Killalla, and Ardchame or Ardagh, clustered together, though still subject to the Archbishop of Armagh. When at length, in the synod of Kells, in 1152, Tuam received the archiepiscopal pallium from the hands of Cardinal Paparo, Ardagh was assigned to the primatial see, but Clonmacnoise was referred to the new province of Tuam. This division soon became a subject of controversy. Tuam claimed the diocese of Ardagh for the western province, whilst Armagh declared that the Shannon was its boundary, and hence reckoned Clonmacnoise as a northern see, and at the same time claimed, as subject to its own metropolitical jurisdiction, the churches of Killmedoin, Croagh-patrick, Killtulagh, and some others of the diocese of Tuam. At the Council of Lateran, held in Rome in 1215, Felix O'Ruadhan, Archbishop of Tuam, and Eugene MacGillividen, Archbishop of Armagh, were both present, and laid their dispute before the great Pontiff Innocent III., and a decree soon after emanated, assigning indeed the above named churches to Tuam, but deferring to a future day the decision of the other points of controversy. In the meantime Armagh was in possession of both sees, and for more than a hundred years they continued thus subject to its metropolitical jurisdiction. As to Ardagh, the question was never after mooted; but towards the middle of the fourteenth century, Clonmacnoise seems to have been again numbered amongst the dioceses of the western province. This change probably took place during the episcopate of Bishop Symon, of the Order of St. Dominick, who, though omitted in the lists of Ware and De Burgo, was appointed to this see on the death of Dr. Henry, in 1349. This prelate, in the bull of his appointment, is declared to be "Priorem fratrum ordinis Praedicatorum de Roscommon, Elfinensis dioecesis, in sacerdotio constitutum et cui de religionis zelo, litterarum scientia, vitae ac morum honestate et aliis virtutum meritis laudabilia testimonia perhibentur" (_ap. Theiner_, pag. 291). At all events, soon after this period we find a list of Irish bishoprics which is now preserved in the Barberini archives at Rome, and in it the see of Clonmacnoise is referred to the province of Tuam. In the consistorial record of the appointment of Dr. O'Higgins, cited above, it is in like manner described as subject to the metropolitical jurisdiction of St. Jarlath's. The episcopate of Dr. O'Hnygyn seems to