I shall now give you, from the Book of Ballymote, my proof for the assertion before advanced as to the _Goban Saer_, whom they would fain appropriate, having been a member of the Tuath-de-danaans, viz.: “Ro gabsat sartain in Eirin Tuatha Dadann is deb ro badar na prem ealadhnaigh: Luchtand saer credne ceard: Dian ceachd liargh etan dan a hingeinsidhe: buime na filedh Goibneadh _Gobha lug_ Mac Eithe Occai; ro badar na huile dana Daghadae in Righ: oghma brathair in Righ, is e ar arainic litri no Scot.” That is, The Tuath-de-danaans then ruled in Eirin. They were first in all sciences. Credne Ceard was of this people; and his daughter _Dean_ Ceachd, who presided over physic: she nursed the poet Gohne _Gobha_, the Free-mason (_lug_ is the same as _Saer_), son of Occai Esthne. Daghdae the king was skilled in all sciences: his brother Ogmus _taught the Scythians the use of letters_. Thus you see that he could not, by possibility, be on the same theatre with _St. Abham_; while the popular tradition is still substantially true which connects his name with the erection of the Round Towers! The Church festivals themselves, in our Christian calendar, are but the direct transfers from the Tuath-de-danaan ritual. Their very _names_ in Irish are identically the same as those by which they were distinguished by that earlier race. If therefore, surprise has heretofore been excited at the conformity observable between our Church institutions and those of the East, let it in future subside at the explicit announcement that _Christianity_, with us, was but the _revival_ of a religion imported amongst us, many ages before, by the Tuath-de-danaans from the East, and not from any chimerical inundation of Greek missionaries--a _revival_ upon which their hearts were longingly riveted, and which Fiech himself, the pupil of St. Patrick, and bishop of Sletty, unconsciously registers in the following couplet, viz.:-- “_Tuatha_ Heren, tarcaintais Dos nicfead sith laithaith nua.”[579] That is,-- The _Budhists_ of Irin prophesied That _new_ times of _peace_ would come. What kind of _peace_, you ask? Is it of _deliverance_ from their _Scythian_ oppressors? No, but that spiritual tranquillity, such as they enjoyed before, and at which even the angels of heaven rejoiced, while announcing the tidings to man[580]-- “And sweet, and with rapture o’erflowing, Was the song from that multitude heard, Who their heav’n for a season foregoing, To second the Angel appear’d. ‘All glory,’ the anthem resounding, ‘To God in the highest,’ began; And the chant was re-echoed, responding, ‘_Peace_ on earth, loving-kindness to man.’”[581] You will remember that the Scriptures themselves record, how that the _wise men of the East_ foresaw this epoch; and “Lo, the star which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.”[582]