Here we find _Fiadh-Nemeadh_ to occur in both accounts, while the belfries are represented in one place as _Cloic teacha_, and in the other as _Erdam_, and in both are opposed to, and contradistinguished from, the _Fiadh-Nemeadh_. Our business now is to investigate what this latter word conveys; and though I do not mean, for a while, to develop its _true interpretation_,--of which I am the sole and exclusive depositary,--yet must I make it apparent, that by it--whatever way it must be rendered--all before me have understood, were emphatically designated our Sabian Towers. Thus Colgan in his _Acts_, p. 297, referring to these words of the Four Masters, says: “Anno 995, Ardmaeha cum _Basilicis_, _Turribus_, _aliisque omnibus edificiis_, incendio ex fulmine generato, tota vastatur.” O’Connor also, wishing to wrest its import to his favourite theory of there having been _gnomons_, while ignorant of its proper force, indulges in a conjecture of the most lunatic _ostentation_, and translates _Fiadh-Nemeadh_ by _celestial indexes_. But though the word does not _literally_ signify either “Towers”--as Colgan, for want of a better exposition, has set forth--or “celestial indexes”--as O’Connor, equally at a loss for its proper meaning, has ventured to promulgate, yet is it indisputable that it stood as the representative of those _enigmatical_ edifices, as well as that both writers had the same structures in view as comprehended under the tenor of this _mysterious_ denomination.[66] These annals I look upon in three different lights as invaluable documents--firstly, as they prove the existence of those edifices at the date above assigned; secondly, as they show that they were distinct things from the belfries--whether cloicteach or erdam--which shared their disaster; and, thirdly, because that, even admitting of O’Connor’s mistranslation, it gives us an insight into their character more fortuitous than he had anticipated. _Celestial indexes!_[67] Could any one be so silly as for a moment to suppose that this was a mere allusion to the circumstance of their height? No; it was no such casual epithet, or witty effort of hyperbole; but it was, what Sallust has so truly said of the Syrtes, “_nomen ex re inditum_.” The identity between this island and the “Insula Hyperboreorum” of Hecatæus being to be completely established in an ensuing chapter,--the _bungling_ of natives and the _claims_ of externs notwithstanding,--I shall not hesitate to assume as _proved_, that ours was the “island” described.